Love and Sin
But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
Romans 5:8
This was my Verse of the Day on YouVersion today. I have read it before. But, for some reason, today two phrases from this verse seemed to be the most important - showed his great love and while we were still sinners.
SHOWED HIS GREAT LOVE
It's really all about Him. He is the great one, the all powerful, the almighty. It is not about us. It is because of His love that He reached, and continues to reach, out to us.
On Easter Sunday, our pastor spoke out of the book of Job. Job was a man of God who suffered in life, body, and experiences. Yet, he had hope! Why? Because, God was his redeemer. He was the only one who could come to Job's aid, to take him out of the situations in his life, which it was impossible for Job to escape on his own.
WHILE WE WERE STILL SINNERS
Wait? You mean that we don't have to be good, perfect people? Absolutely not. God loves us even though we are sinners. He recognizes this sin, but it is all forgiven - past, present, and future - with the death and resurrection of Jesus. I am in complete awe of this.
This made me think of an object lesson I once did at high school camp. At the end of an evening of worship, the leaders gave us small pieces of paper and a pencil. They asked us to write down our sins, struggles, and past experiences, which we wanted God to take from us, which we needed freedom from. After we wrote them down, we were to nail them, with actual nails, to the wooden cross they had placed in the front of the room. It was powerful. To see all those sins, etc., including mine, that Jesus had taken onto himself.
At the end of Easter Sunday's sermon, the pastor said this, "It is not about how good we are, but about how good Jesus is." That is the truth, my friends.
What does this verse mean to you? Is there something you need to nail to the cross?
LINKING UP WITH
.JPG)
9 comments:
This is beautiful and so true. I love the picture at the top :) such a creative idea. The example you gave from high school camp is so neat. Sometimes I think we as humans need to see physical representations like that. It gives more meaning.
Have a wonderful day! Hope you're feeling better.
XO
Praise teh Lord that we don't have to be perfect! God is so good! I praise Him for His salvation! :-)
What a great verse. Thanks for sharing, sometimes I think people get so focused on trying to "save* others by pointing out their sins, when in reality 1) that's not our place to start with, and 2) the sin has already been washed away!
Love this! Praise Him for His grace! Great post!
our church did that for good friday - nailing sins to the cross. such a good visual!
Yes, God is good! I love your picture. One of my favorite things is to see crosses in everyday things! Hope you are feeling better! Rachael
Beautiful thoughts! I love this and it reminds me of a song I just heard on klove by Amy Grant called Don't try so hard. God loves us anyway. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and wisdom :)
these are the words from the chorus:
Don't try so hard
God gives you grace and you can't earn it
Don't think that you're not worth it
Because you are
He gave you His love and He's not leaving
He gave you His Son so you'd believe it
You're lovely even with your scars
Don't try so hard
So true, it's not about how good we are, it's about how good Jesus is! I couldn't agree more! Love your pic of the wooden fence! New follower!
Adrienne
http://myblackwhitecolor.blogspot.com
Amen! We did the same thing at our church. They gave us sticky notes and we wrote down our sins and thumb tacked them to a wooden cross. Jesus saves and forgives as long we we ask...He is there...always. Loved this!
Post a Comment