Hey guys! It's a new year, which means new blog posts! Shocking, right? Actually, I am going to try just a little bit harder to post more often this year, seeing as how my last post is from around three months ago.
In the last week or so I've decided to read the book of Romans, primarily because one of the main goals in my faith walk this year has been to literally fall in love with Jesus Christ. The reason behind this goal (I guess that's the simplest way of putting it) is that I've realized that in order to fully commit my heart to one other individual (i.e. the man I'm going to marry), I must first be in love with my Creator. So, why Romans? Well, Romans is basically God's love letter (written through Paul) to the world... So, why not Romans?!
As I was reading about God's great love for us and everything that he strives to invest into a relationship with us, a couple of verses of scripture stuck out to me...
"All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life - a life that goes on and on and on, world without end."
- Romans 5:20 & 21 (MSG)
These verses are saying, more or less, that no matter how great our sin is, it doesn't have a chance against grace because God's grace will always be greater than our sin. Now that doesn't mean that because grace is around each and every one of our sins are automatically pardoned. But it does mean that, as long as we ask for God's forgiveness, the "aggressive forgiveness" we know as grace will cover all of our sins. In other words, we have a relationship with him, we have grace. Relationship = grace.
It's just like my earthly daddy would always tell me when I was younger and had done something wrong - because I love you, I'm going to give you grace. Instead of a harsh punishment for my wrongdoings, I would recieve very little, if any, punishment at all, mainly because the relationship I had with my dad caused him to not want to punish me. Because of our relationship - because of our great love - I recieved grace.
It's the same way with our relationship with Christ, in that through that strong relationship love and grace can be attained. A relationship not only brings grace, but it also brings a deep love, making it a key part of that falling in love I so long to do. So what do grace greater than sin, a relentless love and a strong relationship all have in common? They help us to fall more in love with the Maker of our hearts.
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