. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners. Christ died for us. Romans 5:8
Read Romans 5:6-11
Let’s read Romans 5:8 in a few translations. The NIV, states it this way, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. The HCSB says, “For while we were still helpless, at the appointed moment, Christ died for the ungodly. The KJV, “for when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
Do you see all the keywords from these different translations? “Just the right time”, appointed moment, in due time. Jesus came just at the right moment in time. God has a divine calendar and His timing is always perfect and we can have hope in this.
Another point we can see from this verse is what God did while we were still sinners. He demonstrates his love for us by having Christ die for our sins. He didn’t love us because we read our bible every day and pray every day, or did good works, or because we were nice. Let’s make this verse a little more personal. In the blank below put your name there and then read the verse out loud.
But God demonstrates his own love for _______________________in this: While ________________________ was still a sinner, Christ died for ____________________________.
Does this verse now encourage you?
Now let’s look at verses 6-11. When did Christ die for us? What makes us right in God’s sight? What was restored by the death of God’s son? What will we be saved through? Because of Jesus Christ, how can our relationship with God be described? Depending on the version of the Bible you use will make the difference of the word used. The word I want us to look at is reconciliation. Did your version have this word in verse 11? Atonement or friends could have been used. Reconciled means to change, exchange, value, return to favor with, be reconciled to one. We can be reconciled to God through Christ can bring great hope to us. We do need to know that our friendship with God is different than our friendship with humans. Here are some aspects of friendship with God that are similar to humans. We spend time together, tell each other our secrets, are honest and trustworthy, like each other. What is different is God knows our heart, he knows who we really are and still loves us.
Read Romans 5:10. What do you think this means? It says, this in the HCSB version, “For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, then how much more, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life! I think that through Jesus we have been reconciled to God, this means through the life of Christ, we can depend on him to help us, to enable us, to empower us to live for Him. Read 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; and Philippians 2:13. These verses show that God Himself empowers us to live for him. He helps us to live daily for or with Him. By allowing Christ to live through us we will have a general focus on being not doing. We will take time to pray and listen to God, and where he would like us to serve. We will depend more on our prayer lives when making decisions and less on our human logic. Also to value rest and relationship as much as we are apart of activities.
Being saved by his life is about internal posture change that will impact our motives and our thoughts. We need to abide in Christ and let Him work through us. When we see Christ as the One empowering us through the Holy Spirit, it takes the pressure off. We don’t have to have everything figured out and do it all perfectly. We can ask God to do it in us and through us. For example, recently I was teaching about the Holy Spirit. This topic can make me nervous. You know I have to have it all figured out and have it right. I have been concerned all week and I did pray over. I wanted good things to come from this. Well, we have visitors and I knew instantly that this one person was praying the whole time I was teaching, God empowered me during this time all because of prayer. We get to find hope through His life as we build our relationship with him. WE get to lean into Him for His strength and wisdom each day.
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you that we get to live through Christ, that he can empower us for his glory. I pray that we seek him out each and every day. I pray that we know that in all things that we can lean into him.
In Jesus Name
Amen
