This afternoon, I was deeply touched by the words I read in my Lenten scripture readings. I was particularly captured by these verses in Romans 5:12-21
12-14You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we're in— first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn't sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it.
15-17Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides?
18-19Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right.
20-21All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.
Oh my!
"One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right!'
Dear God, I want to say yes to you! Help me say yes!
"..sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down."
Grace, sweet amazing grace......
"All sin can do is threaten us with death...."
Yes indeed, sin threatens me with what I fear most; but God's promise in Christ is that these are merely threats....empty, powerless, puffed-up little threats.
"Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end."
Oh, just imagine it! God is putting everything together again; but more than that, God is inviting us into life, his life, his all encompassing and eternal life!
I don't know what to say.
Right now, I'm speechless with the sheer beauty of it all!
I wonder what treasures tomorrow's verses will hold for me?
Just in case you were wondering, here are the verses I will read for Monday: Leviticus 19:1-2, 11-18; Psalm 19:8, 9, 10, 15; Matthew 25:31-46 .
Not sure about that Leviticus passage, but the other verses look promising! (Now watch, Leviticus will rock my world!)
Later gators!
One woman's journey through the forty days of lent!
Where has the time gone? 6 weeks of Lent, already over! It seems just like yesterday it started. But praise God, Resurrection Day is tomorrow. Wooooooooohoooooo!!! My favorite holyday of the year. He's alive, He's alive, not only in heaven, but in you and I.