Getting What You Didn’t Seek
After “manning” the men’s table and attending church last night, today was an assisted living service day. This morning I joined Pastor Steve Harris for a chapel service at Mackenzie Place. This afternoon, I was part of a service at Collinwood Assisted Living. Those services and the preparation took up most of my day. It seem like this month is going by quickly and this next week will a significant number of appointments.
BIBLE VERSE FOR TODAY… “What should we say then? Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained righteousness—namely the righteousness that comes from faith. But Israel, pursuing the law for righteousness, has not achieved the righteousness of the law. Why is that? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works.” Romans 9:30-32 HCSB
What is righteousness? It can be viewed as “rightness.” It is living a life by God’s standard and that which is pleasing to the Lord. How often we hear of individuals who justify themselves by their own actions or their perceived standard of conduct. For the Jews the focus was on the Law of Moses. Their focus was bring “right before God based on their ability to adhere to the law.
Then along come the despised Gentiles and they by their faith in God are declared righteous in a manner that the Jews had not and could not attain. Why was that? Because in God’s sight “no one is righteous.” (Romans 3:10) The righteous life is not a matter of doing as much as it is believing. I once heard it explained that religion is spelled, “d-o” – “do” You follow the rules, jump through the hoops, “live the life.” However, relationship with Christ is spelled, “d-o-n-e” “done.” It is a “rightness” before God based on what Christ has done for us on the cross.
Paul says all this is related to the simplicity of the plan. All have sinned, and all have the same remedy available for sin. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) Often the statement is made, “there are many ways to heaven.” That is the human attempt to be right before God in their “own way.” But it isn’t God’s plan. God’s plan is straightforward.
“This is the message of faith that we proclaim: If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation.” (Romans 10:9,10 HCSB)
We can repent, relax and be right before the Lord. As that new life comes, we then live by that new life. “…We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? ….count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:2,11 NIV)
We can be so familiar with the message and the concepts of what God has done for us through Christ, it can lose its power and significance. In my life, I am paying attention in a fresh way what the hymn writer of old referred to as, “the wonder of it all, just to think that God loved me.”