Romans 5:1-11

¹By faith we have been made acceptable to God. And now, because of our Lord Jesus Christ, we live at peace with God. ²Christ has also introduced us to God’s undeserved kindness on which we take our stand. So we are happy, as we look forward to sharing in the glory of God. ³But that’s not all! We gladly suffer, because we know that suffering helps us to endure. ⁴And endurance builds character, which gives us a hope ⁵that will never disappoint us. All of this happens because God has given us the Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts with his love. ⁶Christ died for us at a time when we were helpless and sinful. ⁷No one is really willing to die for an honest person, though someone might be willing to die for a truly good person. ⁸But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful.

⁹But there is more! Now that God has accepted us because Christ sacrificed his life’s blood, we will also be kept safe from God’s anger. ¹⁰Even when we were God’s enemies, he made peace with us, because his Son died for us. Yet something even greater than friendship is ours. Now that we are at peace with God, we will be saved by his Son’s life. ¹¹And in addition to everything else, we are happy because God sent our Lord Jesus Christ to make peace with us.

We’ve recently had a lot of trouble with our credit cards.  For some reason or other, that no one seems to be able to work out, they have been being randomly declined.  They have become unacceptable to the vendor as a method of payment.  And I’m old-fashioned enough to feel that as a slight on my character.  It makes me feel unacceptable.

There may be things in our lives that we feel have made us unacceptable to God.  If we’ve disobeyed, been moany, got things wrong… all things that we’ve seen through the passages we’ve been following, then perhaps we think God will no longer want to be bothered with us – we won’t be acceptable.

BUT

our very faith in God makes us acceptable. Jesus, who came from God, introduces us to all that God offers.  Those things that we thought were a block are taken away by him.  God is not angry with us, because he looks not on us, but on Jesus.  Jesus has done what we couldn’t do.  He has died for sin, because there is nothing we could do about it.  But he can – and he has.

And that offers to us the reality of peace and of hope.

Not accepted?  Not so!

Thank you Lord

that there is hope for me,

that because Jesus stands in my place

I am acceptable, forgiven and loved.

May I feel that peace.

~ by pamjw on March 23, 2011.

Posted in forgiveness, Jesus, Lectionary, lent
Tags: Acceptence, Jesus, lent, peace, Romans 5:1-11