“Wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.” Rom. 4:4-5
Heavenly Father, right out of the prayer-gate, thank you. This Scripture contradicts and sabotages everything we assume about how life “works”—quite literally, works. We do a job, earn a wage, and that’s that. Thankfully, the Gospel flies in the face of normalcy, conventionality, and predictability.
When we come to you, earning is replaced with gifting. Merit gets crushed under the weight of mercy. What we could never earn—a perfect righteousness, you have credited to us as an irrevocable gift. Jesus isn’t our second chance; he is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30). Thank you for being immeasurably generous, irrepressibly kind, and scandalously good.
Because of Jesus’ once-and-for-all finished work, our sins are once-and-for-all forgiven—never to be remembered against us. Hallelujah… Father, make this 100—no, 1000 times more real to us than anything else in life, because it impacts every aspect of life. Because you have hidden our lives in Christ, we now live in your all-conditions-met acceptance, unending delight, and constant serenading (Zeph. 3:14-17).
By the power of the Holy Spirit, drive the Gospel deeper and deeper into our hearts. We long for the Day when we’ll never again dis-believe or under-believe the Gospel. So Very Amen.