Romans 5:15 NIV
“But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!”
“But the gift is not like the trespass”. This simple, yet powerful sentence follows a paragraph in Romans where Paul clearly lays out the history of sin, death, and the ultimate hopelessness of mankind. What if the story were to end there? What if all that we had was the Old Testament and not the promise of the new covenant? When you really set your mind on this thought it is a frightening venture to think what the hope of mankind would hinge on if it were not for Jesus Christ.
The “gift” as Paul describes salvation in Romans 5:15 is truly that, an undeserved, completely unwarranted, absolutely humbling, drop to your knees form of love. The love of a just and sovereign God for his creation, though from the dawn of time to the present day we fail to live up to his holy standards. God sent his Son to die a slow and horrible death on the cross to save us from eternal separation from Him, and yet sometimes we are annoyed that the person in front of us at the grocery store has eleven items in the checkout lane that requires ten items or less. Jesus suffered mockery, beatings, and was crucified next to thieves for proclaiming exactly who He was and yet we get annoyed when the waiter simply makes a mistake on our dinner order. Grace. Perspective. Having Christ in our life give us both and we should extend this to others.
We live in a fallen world and none of us will ever ace perfection. Let’s do our best to remember that the perfect mix of mercy and grace was gifted to us on the hill of Calvary and that should give us pause every moment of the day. Pause when a friend lets us down. Pause when we judge someone without cause. Pause when we lose a loved one. We all need the love and grace of Jesus Christ, every minute, every second, every waking moment. Let’s do our best to extend this good news to everyone that we come in contact with, honoring our Lord and Savior all the day long.
With prayer and love, Justin