Grace,Righteouness and The Promises of God

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Today our passage is Romans 4: 13-25.

13 For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.
Oh, think about that.  Just THINK about that.  Abraham, we already know he’s been declared righteous because of his faith.  WE got that right?  HE will be heir to the world because of the righteousness of his faith.   He is our father in the faith.. so think about what that means.  Ponder it.

Cause it just kinda hit me tonight as I was reading.

Those that stick to the law are not the inheritors of the earth.  The law brings wrath.
BUT those who have faith… THEY inherit the earth.    

16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring
Why? So that God’s promise rests on grace and is a guarantee to all the offspring of Abraham.  Faith and grace… so intertwined.
 
—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.
Abraham…the father of many physical descendants as well as many spiritual descendants.   God kept his promise to Abraham and all his descendents, and that means to us to eh?   As believers God’s promises to Abraham… those promises based on grace, and our faith. 

  18 In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. 20 No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, 21 fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. 22 That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” 23 But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
These verses are amazing. See Abraham’s faith in action.  Against the odds his faith stayed strong.  Old age and the unbelief of others didn’t stop his faith in God.  Unswerving. 

But read these words: he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.   Do you see it?  As he gave glory to God his faith grew stronger.   Wow.   Just WOW.  Think about that.  I’m thinking about that.   

Praising God, giving glory to God, means our faith grows stronger.

Makes me think about how in a marriage, if you act in a loving way toward your spouse it increases the depth of your love for him/her.   It does.  It changes your love and makes it grow.  Like an echo of how.. if we act in a loving way toward God, if we give him glory and honour, our faith in him grows becoming stronger and fuller.   And it counts to us as righteousness.

When the bible tells us that Abraham’s faith was counted to him as righteousness it wasn’t only for the sake of Abraham eh?   See these words:   But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Abraham’s faith, that faith seen in those who believe in Jesus raised from the dead.  Jesus the very son of God who was delivered up for OUR sins, who was raised for OUR justification.   If we believe this… then OUR faith is counted as righteousness.  Not just Abraham.. but US TOO!   

I read these words and I think to Martin Luther and how reading Romans changed his entire life.  See faith and righteousness and God’s grace so intertwined…and how it passes through the generations so that not only Abraham’s faith is counted as righteous…but ours too, if we truly believe.
  
To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here.