I
love the fact that in all of my failure, mess, and insecurities, God loves me.
He doesn’t just tolerate me or like me; He loves me.
I
shared this truth that God loves me with a person lately and they asked how I
know. They weren’t trying to disagree or mock my statement. They were honestly
asking how I knew that God really loved me.
There
are an overwhelming number of evidences of God’s love for us. There are so many
that I don’t have the space or time to share all of them.
I
will focus on two passages of scripture that are huge in revealing the extent
of God’s love for us and the result of that love.
Romans
5:6-8
You
see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the
ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man
someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love for us in
this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Please,
allow me to draw the picture that is presented here.
We
as humans are powerless.
The
word powerless means to be weak, infirmed, feeble, or helpless.
We
are sick from sin. We are also helpless to provide the cure for our sickness.
I
hate feeling powerless. I don’t like feeling that I have no ability to control
or change things.
The
reality is that, before I surrendered my life to Jesus, I had no control. Even
as a follower of Jesus, there is very little I have control over. But before
Jesus, I didn’t have the ability to change the fact I was a sinner and was
dying because of sin. I couldn’t change the fact that God and I were not in
unity. I couldn’t change the fact that I was sick with sin.
Raise the Roof and
Remove the Walls
is admitting that we in ourselves have no power to change the fact that we are
sinners.
We
as humans are ungodly.
Romans
3:10-18 says, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who
seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no
one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues
practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full
of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery
mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God
before their eyes.”
That
is not a flattering picture of humanity.
Humanity
without Jesus:
Is
Not Righteous
Doesn’t
Seek God
Has
Rejected God
Has
Become Worthless
Does
Not Do Good
Words
Are Deceitful and Mean
Violence
Characterizes Our Actions
Living
in Failure, Misery, and With No Peace
Doesn’t
Fear God
When
you take all those characteristics, it equates to ungodliness.
I
know that to many, the idea that we are born sinners or born with a bent toward
sin or a nature that leads us to sin is not believable. Yet that is what God’s
Word teaches and what our experience testifies to.
We
are not only ungodly, but remember we are also powerless. We cannot in our own
ability and resources change the fact that we are ungodly.
Raise the Roof and
Remove the Walls
is acknowledging the fact that, without Jesus as Savior and Lord, we are
ungodly.
We
as humans are sinners.
Sin
is mainly defined by many, even many in the church today, as immorality. There
is so much more involved in sin than immorality.
The
word sin in scripture means to miss the mark.
The
idea of sin is revealed in Romans 3:23. Sin is not living up to God’s
standards.
What
are God’s standards? To perfectly obey Him all the time. I equate that to have
to making 100 on every test, assignment, and homework in kindergarten through
your senior year in high school. Some people have made all A’s, but no one has
made 100 on everything through thirteen years of school.
There
is no human being who has ever completely obeyed God all the time. Oh, wait a
minute. Yes, there is, and His name is Jesus.
Jesus
lived a powerful, godly, sinless life. He perfectly obeyed the Father all the
time.
Jesus
then allowed Himself to be placed on the cross and crucified. Jesus did that as
our atoning sacrifice. He could be our atoning sacrifice, our perfect sacrifice
for sin, because He was sinless.
Jesus
died for us while we were powerless, ungodly sinners.
No
one else would even think about doing that. Jesus didn’t think about doing it;
He did it.
Raise the Roof and
Remove the Walls
is accepting the gift that only Jesus could give us, the gift of forgiveness
and eternal life.
The
result of Jesus dying for us while we were powerless, ungodly sinners is found
in 2 Corinthians 5:21.
That
verse says, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we
might become the righteousness of God.”
Jesus
took the guilt and penalty of our sin and gave us His righteousness, His
sinless perfection before the Father.
The
result of you and me accepting Jesus’ gift of His life sacrificed for us is not
becoming a better person or better spouse or parent or going to heaven. All
those will happen, but the primary result of us accepting Jesus’ sacrifice is that
we become the righteousness of God.
Raise the Roof and
Remove the Walls
is, through the sacrifice of Jesus, becoming the righteousness of God.
You
and I are the righteousness of God, not because we have done anything to
accomplish that, but because Jesus went to the cross, and in dying He
accomplished that.
Through Jesus Making Me
the Righteousness of God, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls
Joe
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