Chapter 5
By believing in and putting our personal trust in Jesus, in who he is and in what he has done for us, we have been justified- forgiven and declared righteous by God. And because of this, we are no longer at war, but at peace with him. Not only do we have direct access to God, but we are also confident that we now live in a state of being characterized by the availability of God's free and freeing grace- unmerited favor and desire and power to live for him. Even beyond all this, we have a joyfully motivating, present and earnest expectation concerning our glorious destiny- being personally perfected and living in a perfect place in the presence of God.
Comments:
Salvation is a big word, that is, it covers a lot of territory. Because we are in Christ, our past, present and future have all been absolutely revolutionized. In this little paragraph at the beginning of Romans 5 the whole landscape of our life is in view. All of the failures and sins of our past...along with the tormenting guilt and shame associated with them...have been washed away in the vast sea of God's deliberate forgetfulness. In the present, we have new desires...healthy and holy passions... encoded and embedded into our deepest heart...along with the power to live them out. (Not perfectly, mind you, but substantially and truly.) We now enjoy a new "state of being" that is centered in the realism of Christ living within us...whatever the circumstances about us might be. His peace is ours and a genuine interactive friendship with the Father, Son and Spirit in real time is our gracious inheritance and the key to living well in this fallen world. Regarding our future...we have to use our renewed imaginations to even begin to conceive of the beauty, joy and complete and amazing satisfaction...spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, vocationally and relationally...we will eternally know and delight in. (I've written more on this theme in a past blog called "Heaven Is" on 11/22/06. www.michael-radius.blogspot.com)
May the peace of Christ be yours in every way this day.
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