July 6
I Chronicles 13-15
Psalm 78:32-39
Proverbs 17:9-11
Romans 3
All Have Sinned
“There is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become useless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12 HCSB
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23 HCSB
In Romans 3, Paul completes the accusation that both the Jews and the Gentiles are guilty before God. He dispels the idea that any man can stand before a holy God and be declared righteous on his own merits. He leaves no room for doubt that we are all sinners and that no one is righteous, not even one. After establishing his case for the sinfulness of man, Paul explains that the righteousness that the law was powerless to provide, God Himself provided by sending His Son, Jesus. This righteousness comes by faith to all who believe in Jesus. I John 1:8, 10 tells us, “If we say, ‘We have no sin,’ we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us…. If we say, ‘We don’t have any sin,’ we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us.” (HCSB) We don’t like to think of ourselves as sinners. If you asked most people if they think they are a good person, they would probably say that they do consider themselves to be good. We tend to think positively about ourselves and overlook areas in our lives where we know we are not living up to God’s standards. We tend to compare ourselves to those around us.
The problem with comparisons is that we can always find someone who is worse than we are. If we compare ourselves to murderers, thieves, adulterers, rapists, and corrupt politicians we look pretty good. We can easily convince ourselves that if we don’t do any of the big stuff then we are ok. The problem is that is not how it works. At the end of our lives, we will not stand before the judgment seat of God with a bunch of other people while He ranks us based on the severity of our sin letting the ones with the least sin in and casting out the ones with a lot of sin. There is also not some giant scale in Heaven that God uses to weigh our sins. The big sins weigh more so at the end of our life if our good deeds outweigh our bad ones, God lets us in. The standard is not other people. The standard is Jesus. We will not be compared to all the other people in the world and judged based on how we measure up to them. We are judged by how we measure up to Jesus. He is perfect, so no matter how good we are, no matter how many good deeds we do and how well we can follow the rules, we cannot possibly be perfect. If we stand before God based on our own merits, we are all doomed.
Thankfully, God recognized this, and He provided His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. That is a big word that simply means that He is our substitute. He assumed our obligation, took our punishment, and covered our sin by His sacrifice on the cross. We have two choices. If we have believed in Jesus and accept Him as our Savior and Lord, then at the end of our life when we stand before a holy and just God, the righteousness of Jesus is imparted to us, and we are judged based on His righteousness not based on our own merits. We are covered by His cleansing blood and accepted into glory. If, on the other hand, we have not believed in Jesus and have not accepted Him into our hearts, then we must stand before God based on our own merits and inevitably, we will be found guilty and be condemned to death and Hell. None of us deserve Heaven. We deserve death and Hell, but His love and mercy have provided a way for our redemption through faith in Jesus.
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