Daily Devotional

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May 09 2008

Genesis 15:5-6 “’So shall your descendants be!’ Abram believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness!”

Abram was the father of faith. What does that mean? What is faith? It means you believe God; you trust God; you count on His promises. Abram counted on God. Abram believed and trusted in the promises that God made to him. And he was obedient. If God said “go” - then Abram went! Now the next part is very interesting. Genesis says because Abram trusted in God and in His promises and was obedient in following the Lord’s commands that “the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness!” Righteousness is credited to his account! It’s not an actual righteousness; it’s not an actual goodness; it’s imputed or reckoned to him. He gets credit for it - even though you cannot conclude he deserves the credit! So the key to being righteous - as far as God is concerned - is to believe God - to trust God and God’s promises and then to be obedient to God’s commands. Whether you actually are good; no matter where you stand on any kind of goodness scale or comparative righteousness meter in relation to anybody else - those are not the questions. The issue is whether you believe in the promises of God and whether you are obedient to the commands of the Lord in your life. So Tommy, consider well the promises of God to love you and forgive you and redeem you. Do you believe in those promises? Do you believe in the love of God and in the forgiveness of the Lord? And what are God’s commands to me? How about to love my neighbor - in a positive fashion? How about to forgive others as I have been forgiven? How about serving others as Jesus came to serve? As far as “my goodness” goes - it does not go nearly far enough! There is still a huge gap between God and me! I cannot bridge that gap - to “save my soul!” But if I believe the good news of the gospel; if I believe that God has revealed what God wants me to do and to believe and hope - in Jesus Christ…and if I am obedient to the commands of the Lord, then I get credit for Christ’s righteousness and goodness! In the final judgment of things, when the grades on the final exam are posted, Jesus gets my final grade of failure and I get Jesus’ grade of A+! Now I agree that’s not fair; it’s certainly not fair to Jesus; and it’s not fair to me; it’s much more than fair to me. It’s a pardon; not a justification. We are “justified by faith!” It is true that “salvation comes by grace through faith!” It is true that Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life!” It is true that “no one comes to the Father” except through Jesus Christ! But it’s not “over his dead body!” It is through His “death and resurrection!” Because He lives - we shall also!

Father, forgive me for my secret and covert attempts at self-justification. Open my eyes each day to see how I slide down that slippery slope of trusting in myself and my own sense of goodness and rightness. May I see each day that I cannot and will not be right enough. But may I also see that Christ is blameless; that You are total goodness because Your essence is the fullness of love!