GOSPEL MEDITATION
Romans 3:19-26 & 1 John 1:5-2:2
The Righteousness of God Through Faith
- Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passages of Scripture.
- Reread them. From memory, determine the central points.
- “For all have sinned” is where it all starts. The testimony of both Old and New Testaments is that we have broken God’s commandments and therefore cannot have fellowship with Him, now and forever.
- The intent of God however, is that we enjoy His presence forever—Paradise regained—thus He acts to do what we cannot do.
- The Gospel must begin with our terrible condition but it then goes on to the mercy of God.
- Jesus Himself, Emmanuel, God with us, takes the death we deserve upon Himself on the cross. In a way we do not understand (we use words like love, grace, mercy) we are completely and forever forgiven and given as a result, the gift of eternal life—and all without our doing anything at all.
- Notice all our sin is gone, past, present, and future sin. But what about out future sin, how is it forgiven?
- Though it will never be fully understood, all of our sin was nailed to the cross. Yes, it is beyond us. But that it is what Scripture clearly teaches. How then do we deal with our ongoing sin? The Apostle John tell us in 1 John.
- We do continue to sin, daily, hourly, minutely. There is no help in denying this. We are to confess our sin, sin already forgiven, but which weighs on us nevertheless. We see that the Father is the wise counselor, psychiatrist, and healer.