Monday, August 26, 2013

In this world we are like Jesus (1 John 4:17)

Galatians 3:11
  • Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”

Now it is evident that not a single person is found righteous in the sight of God by trying to keep the law with one's own exerted effort because a person who lives by trusting God's power, wisdom, grace, mercy, and love is declared righteous in the sight of God.

We see this principle played out in our own lives. For example, any person can work really hard for someone else's parents for their acceptance and love. However, that kind of hard work doesn't make one to become the child of someone else's parents. 

The only condition for a person to become a child of any parents is to be born into that family. Likewise, we need to be born again spiritually and we're born into God's family. We become children of God. 

Additionally, you can be adopted into a family to become a child of those parents. And that is also what happened to us who put their faith in Jesus. 

Ephesians 1:5 
  • God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 

So we weren't justified on the basis of our hard work and self-exerted effort. Rather, we were justified because we had faith in God, even His Son, Jesus Christ. 

By faith, we have been born again and adopted into God's family. 

It would be super ludicrous for a child to work really hard to please their parents in order to become their child, right? Because that child is already a child of their parents.

It is the same with us when we try to justify ourselves by working really hard to please God in order to be saved by God and become His child.

We become His child, solely by believing in Jesus that He took my sins away and trusting in His grace for my whole being.

Children take after their parents. Likewise, we, His children, take after Jesus Christ. 

1 Corinthians 1:8
  • He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 John 4:15, 16, 17
  • If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

  • God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 

  • This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 

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