Provision of Unrighteousness

Today’s Reading Romans 4-5

Provision of Unrighteousness

It’s only natural to be friendly to those who are friendly.

To like those who are likeable.

To love those who are lovely.

Outgoing, attractive, pleasant people have a magnetic quality about them that draws the attention and affection in others. Human love is a response to favorable qualities in the object of one’s affection.

Not so with God’s love! He expressed His love for sinful humanity while we were “without strength”, “ungodly” (5:6), “sinners” (5:8), and “enemies” (5:10). God’s love is not a response at all. It is a decisive act of His will toward the object of His affection. God loves you, not because of but in spite of you.

Do you love as God loves, reaching out with concern and compassion to the needy and unlovely and even repulsive? If not, admit your lack of love to God (He knows already); meditate upon His unconditional love for you; then with God’s help, allow the “love of God (to be) shed abroad” (5:5) from your heart to the heart of one other person who desperately needs to experience it today.

Problem of Unrighteousness

Today's Reading Romans 1-3

Two Christians were talking about the president of a corporation who died recently. The executive had been a moral man and a philanthropist, but an avowed atheist who had made no pretense of believing in Jesus Christ as his Savior. One friend mused, "It's hard to believe he won't be in heaven. He was such a good man, so thoughtful of his employees, so generous." To which the other gently responded with the words of John 3:18, He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

Perhaps you, too, have difficulty coming to gripes with the lost condition of sinful people... or with you own lostness apart from Christ. Read Romans 3 again thoughtfully, until the solemn truth of human depravity sinks in. Humanity's only hope - and yours - is faith in Christ's finished work. It's simple as accepting God's offer of "salvation to every one that believeth" (1:16). Will you in believing faith come to Jesus Christ right now?

Tomorrow we will be looking into Romans 4-5 "Provision of Righteousness"