ESOCS Devotional 23 March 2023

ESOCS Devotional 23 March 2023

MEMORY VERSE: “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’ Romans 1:17 NIV

Paul’s epistle to the Romans has a lot of strong, direct and practical statements of truth. Verses like our memory verse or Rom 3:8, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” or Rom 8:37, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Verses like these crystallize our faith into something solid, something tangible, something foundational. Our faith is rooted and grounded in the word of God – and the word of God we are reading today is a result of a letter Paul wrote to the church in Rome.

But God has given us the good news, promised in his Holy Scriptures. Verses 1-4 tell us that Christ came down as a man, promised in the Scriptures, and that he rose from the dead. 1 Cor 15:3-4 helps us fill in some missing details, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” That is the gospel; God came to shine the light into our dark hearts to turn them away from sin and toward his goodness and mercy by dying for our sins. It is through Jesus Christ our Lord that we can now know God and come to him. Can we know God in any other way? It would be impossible, because the only man who is God is our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now let’s look into how the gospel works itself out in our lives. We see that in v. 5-15, but first look at v. 5-7, “Through him we received grace and apostleship to call all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith for his name’s sake.” And you are also among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ. We deny God, we reject God, but it is truly his grace that he would call us. We also receive apostleship. An apostle is a delegate, a messenger, one who is sent forth with orders. Apostleship is to be like a messenger, an ambassador of God.

Likewise, through the gospel we are chosen to call people to the obedience that comes from faith. We are representatives of the kingdom of God, tasked to preach the gospel and call people to repent from their unbelief, to put their faith in God and obey the author of their lives.

The Gospel is the Power of God unto Salvation, and like Paul be not ashamed of the Gospel.