Rejoice! Stand in THIS Grace.

 Today our passage is Romans 5:1-11.

  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

You know what that word therefore means right?   It means that remember what you have just learned.. keep that in mind..  cause now there will be a new thing to add in.

Remember that we have been justified because of our faith.  Got that right?
The result of that is this:  we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And not only that. 

•  access to the grace in which we stand 
• we can rejoice in hope of the glory of God
• we can rejoice in our sufferings BECAUSE suffering eventually leads to hope, a hope because of God's love. 

I have to admit that I don't get this all.  I don't.  How does one live in the God's grace?  How does one stand within that grace?  I looked it up in other translations and that was no help.
So I leaned on hubby who helped me understand that it's grace, a tangible thing that we see in our hope, and in how we deal with suffering and build character and overall live within that hope of God's glory.   It's is not just God's kindness, but it THE GRACE...the grace that is God and is a tangible thing that we can hold on to.  And I'm probably not explaining it well, but it's real and it's there and it's what helps us rejoice in our sufferings because we can see the end result of it  all.

⁶ For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— ⁸ but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹ Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹ More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

These verses point out to us that Christ died at just the right time.  God knew you know?  How all these cultures would merge in Rome. The Passover which brings people into Jerusalem so all these people would see the mighty work that God had done.  God's timing was perfect.

Our weakness was still there, a people so prone to turning away from God, a people so ungodly. A people full of sin. BUT read this: but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners.  Showing love to us.. sinners!  And we already know how God sees sin right?  God sent his son to DIE for us. 

 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹ More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Since we've been justified by his blood, we are also saved from the wrath of God. Think about what that means.  While we were in that horrible icky state, enemies of God, and he chose to reconcile us to him by the death of his Son.    So now we've been made right with God just think about how much more we will be saved by his life.  Just think about that!  We have that reconciliation.  We have the joy in God. What am I saying.. doesn't all this give you reason, give me reason to REJOICE in the Lord God.  That tremendous gift he gave us in reconciliation.   We were horrible in our sin and God knew that and yet, and yet he chose to bring us back to himself.   If that isn't a reason to rejoice what is?
 
 To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here.

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