November 30th, 20

FAR FROM HOME

Today’s reading is Romans 5 – 8.  We are reading from the New Living Translation.

We are so far from home.  Our whole being is lost. It was lost in the Garden – lost to the self, lost in sin, lost because of Satan.  We are so very lost, far more lost than we know.  But that is why God gave us the Law.  Sin is so deceptive that we minimize our plight.  We are blinded to how lost we really are.  But the Law opens our eyes and shows us how far from home we truly are. God gave us his word to open our eyes to see how deeply we are lost and how far from home we have wandered.  God gave us his word to prepare us to see and understand the Living Word. The Logos of God, The Final word, Jesus Himself. He is the Telos, the point and purpose and the complete exposition of Who God is and who we are in Him.    

God’s answer to our plight is not the Law or the Prophets, or our ability to somehow try to live up to his standards.  We are incapable of it!  Paul looks at his condition and says, who can save me from this body of sin – this life of lostness?

Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rm 7:24 NLT)

And then he tells us what the answer is,  

Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.  (Rm.7:25 NLT)

He’s the only one who lived up to the demands of the Law.  In His life, he qualified himself for the kind of death that he would offer on our behalf, as a substitute for our lost lives.  And now, because God received that offering of his spotless life for us, God raised him up in new triumphant, resurrection life, over death, sin, and the grave.  And now his new life indwells all those who trust him.  His Spirit enables us to live the life we were once incapable of living.

God has come to reinhabit that which was lost – making God’s life in us possible, even today.  Christ in us is our hope and our glory.  God has the answer to our lostness.  We no longer have to live far from home.  No he has come into the far country and rescued us from our slavery.  He’s freed us.  Now we can live free, not according to the Law, but by the Spirit of Christ, living in us.

Prayer for Today:  Christ, come live your life in and through me. Do what I am incapable of doing. Help me to live in your Spirit and not according to the Law, and my old sinful nature, because I’m far more lost than I have any idea of. Teach me to live in and through your Spirit. With you all things become possible. Amen.

You are loved!