Romans Reading Plan
But in our time something new has been added. I like this but...I cannot lie. Okay, maybe that wasn't the way you wanted to start your Monday morning, but c'mon...laugh a little! Seriously though, I have been waiting for this small three-letter word since day one of our reading through Romans. This is where it all turns. This is where we are introduced to hope. This is where the bridge is built and reconnections are made.
Do you remember life before Facebook? You know that life where you simply wondered what your friends from high school were doing, but didn't want to exert the effort to track anyone down. FB made it easy to reconnect with friends that we have lost touch with over the years. Reconnections are great (in most instances). One of the things I like about going to see my in-laws is the fact they live in the town where I spent 6-12 grades. I always see old friends when I go back and when I get to see that one friend I haven't seen or heard from in 20 plus years, it's really nice.
Paul is introducing us to an opportunity to reconnect. For nearly three whole sections, Paul has built a case that no one is good enough to be reconnected to God. We all start out in the same boat, at the same starting line, with the same problem - sin separates us from God. Now we have a chance, though, to reconnect because "something new has been added.
The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. We have seen that the Law was given to show us our sin, but it didn't fix it. The Law simply showed all of us that none of us are capable of "setting things right" between us and God. We can't make a phone call or send an email on this one. That said, God provided Jesus to do what we could not and cannot do. We were "incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us," so He did it for us. He put Jesus in our place. No Jesus' rightness is accredited to us. By putting our trust and life in Jesus, we can reconnect with God.
He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! What a way to start my day and my week! This is a reconnection that changes everything. It changes me. It can change you. How did he get us out of the mess? The work of Jesus Christ, while here on this earth, is the means for our reconnection and our trust and faith in him and his way for us is our way of receiving it. At the risk of sounding cheesy, God has sent every one of us a "friend request" and it sits in our inbox waiting an action - to accept or to ignore.
In the next few days we are going to dive deeper into the sacrifice Christ made on our behalf and why that was the only option for our reconnection to Father. For today, what is it about today's reading that makes you pause? Does any of this make you smile?
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