Reconciled Hearts: Wondrous Love's Divine Work Completed
Daily Scripture
Romans 5:3-10
3 But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, 4 endurance produces character, and character produces hope. 5 This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
6 While we were still weak, at the right moment, Christ died for ungodly people. 7 It isn’t often that someone will die for a righteous person, though maybe someone might dare to die for a good person. 8 But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us. 9 So, now that we have been made righteous by his blood, we can be even more certain that we will be saved from God’s wrath through him. 10 If we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son while we were still enemies, now that we have been reconciled, how much more certain is it that we will be saved by his life?
Daily Reflection & Prayer
Lest our study of the multiple theories of the atonement make the cross of Jesus seem hopelessly complex, Paul’s profound but simple summary shows us the way: “God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” Scholar E. P. Sanders wrote, “What matters is belonging to Christ, and his death makes this possible.” * In “this artfully constructed passage…. Paul summarizes the past, present, and future aspects of the new life of reconciliation and righteousness (see also 2 Corinthians 5:14-21). This life is the result of God’s gracious love to sinful humanity, which was demonstrated in Christ’s death. Continued now in the gift of the Spirit, this new life is the source of certain hope for future salvation.” ** (If possible, also read John’s expansive description of God’s love in 1 John 4:7-19.)
- God’s love, Paul said, is the reason we can live with hope. Scholar John Stott posed the crucial question: “How can we be sure of God’s love?…. The apostle spells out two major means by which we come to be sure that God loves us. The first is that God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us (verse 5)…. Second, it is that he has proved his love by Christ’s death on the cross. To grasp this, we need to remember that the essence of loving is giving…. God’s love in Christ is absolutely unique. For in sending his Son to die for sinners, he was giving everything, his very self, to those who deserved nothing from him except judgment…. The unique majesty of God’s love lies in the combination of three factors, namely that when Christ died for us, God (a) was giving himself, (b) even to the horrors of a sin-bearing death on the cross, and (c) doing so for his undeserving enemies.” *** How can the solid fact that Jesus died on the cross give you an anchor even when life’s hardships cause you to doubt God’s love?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, Genesis 2:2 summed up the first creation as completed on the sixth day, with God “resting” on the seventh. Creating anew, you completed your saving, rescuing, restoring work of love on Friday and rested on the Saturday before Easter. Thank you that I can spend this day in hope and anticipation as your beloved, adopted child. Amen.
GPS Insights
Megan DelGrosso
Megan DelGrosso, who serves as the rezlife Student Ministry Director for Resurrection's Leawood location, wrote today's Insights blog. She is a Pennsylvania native who moved to Kansas City with her husband and two children when she joined the Resurrection staff in 2021, after 10 years of student ministry and non-profit work in Pittsburgh. Megan loves spending time with her family, beach life, Marvel movies, and exploring new places.
“You are not perfect, and you do not have to be. In fact, you are not supposed to be. God designed you to be you, and I love who you are.” That is what I told my 9-year-old daughter as she was getting ready for school one morning this week. She was overwhelmed with the weight of State Testing, and of course spelling test Fridays, and the result of all that overwhelm was a lot of angry tears and a broken planner. She was hurting, and mad. She wished she never had to do spelling tests or state testing again. Honestly, that’s fair. One of the great joys of adulthood is not having to take spelling tests.
I have wished my problems away too, though it would be easier to send our problems away and not have to deal with them. Maybe they are situations that are out of our control, or situations we created by hurting someone or something else (even unintentionally), or something that happened to us because of someone else. Regardless, no matter how much we wish them away, we almost always have to deal with them. You have to take the state test, apologize, forgive, show up, whatever it is. These problems will shape us and change us. They allow us to grow and learn in a way that we never would if difficult things never happened in our lives.
When I think about difficult things in my life from over the years, whether they were created by me or not, I am reminded that no matter what problems I bring to the table, Jesus still chose to die for an ungodly person (like me). With all my baggage, and all my mess. Jesus chose to die for someone who doesn’t always get it right, for someone who makes mistakes, and who says the wrong thing sometimes. There was a long time where I lived in just that space, though-–where God saw the bad in me, so Jesus had to die for me. I am so glad I was wrong on that one. God sees more than our problems, and our mistakes. To describe humans in Scripture we read words like chosen, known, my beloved child, and so many more-–all while humans were still actively making poor choices. In Luke 16:15 Jesus tells the Pharisees that God knows their hearts, and I believe He knows mine too. All the good, all the messy, and everything in between.
When my daughter was calmed down, we talked about all the things that make her special. She is smart and caring, she includes people, she is honest and kind, creative and imaginative. I know God sees all those things in her too. I am grateful for a God that sees all parts of us and still chooses us.
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Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Sanders, E. P., Paul: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions Book 42) (p. 94). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.
** Michael J. Gorman, study note on Romans 5:1-11 in The CEB Study Bible. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013, pp. 283-284 NT.
*** John Stott, The Message of Romans. InterVarsity Press, 1984, pp. 144-146.
