The Patriarch Job wrote in Chapter Seven verses 1 – 6 (Message) these words.

There’s Nothing to My Life

7 ^1-6 “Human life is a struggle, isn’t it?
    It’s a life sentence to hard labor.
Like field hands longing for quitting time
    and working stiffs with nothing to hope for but payday,
I’m given a life that meanders and goes nowhere—
    months of aimlessness, nights of misery!
I go to bed and think, ‘How long till I can get up?’
    I toss and turn as the night drags on—and I’m fed up!
I’m covered with maggots and scabs.
    My skin gets scaly and hard, then oozes with pus.
My days come and go swifter than the click of knitting needles,
    and then the yarn runs out—an unfinished life!

The Bible tells us that even believers struggle with trusting God because life is hard and cruel at times. But we know there is hope and that joy is 100% possible because of the eternal life we have with Christ. Therefore, God wants us to be full of faith and grow in His divine direction, comforted by the Holy Spirit. In this complete trust of our Lord and Savior, we can live with true peace and joy.

Today, we have the opportunity to renew our perspective. Be encouraged, learn to walk through each day with a Romans 5:8 joyful spirit and a refocused mind.

• Remember the Gospel hope found in God’s promises.
• Take comfort in God’s divine plan for your life.
• Rejoice in God’s presence.
• Reconnect with the true Gospel life-changing hope found in the Bible.
• Share with others the answer to their deepest problem and greatest need.

The Struggle is Absolutely Real ….

But GOD is also absolutely 100% REAL!

Romans 5:6-8 Easy-to-Read Version

⁶ Christ died for us when we were unable to help ourselves. We were living against God, but at just the right time Christ died for us. ⁷ Very few people will die to save the life of someone else, even if it is for a good person. Someone might be willing to die for an especially good person. ⁸ But Christ died for us while we were still sinners, and by this God showed how much he loves us.

The Word of God for the Children of God. Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.

God’s people have been struggling for millennia to understand the love of God.

They have misunderstood him, taken him for granted, ignored him, and sinned against him, but he has never stopped showing his love to them.

Ultimately, Jesus left his throne in heaven to come and show us once and for all exactly how deep the love of God is for us. You and I have to 100% believe that.

You and I have to acknowledge the love of God for us.

That’s my greatest prayer.

The way to your salvation is by trusting the God of all Life that tells this story.

You and I can have love like this, and it does not even matter we’re a sinner, because Christ died for sinners. In fact, he died only for sinners. So, if we see our need for a love like this, we 100% qualify for that love. We can all come to him, and he will not cast us out because God shows his love to a surprising people.

God shows his Gospel love unto a surprising people.

The kind of person that God shows his love to is surprising. He shows his love to sinners. The text is plain and simple, Paul writes, “while we were still sinners”.

If we had the all-seeing eye of God, we would be appalled at not only the sin we see in each other but the sin we see in our own hearts.

I’d venture to say we are aware of about 5% of our sin. But God sees all of it.

We need to understand what our sin looks like to God. Our sins aren’t mistakes.

We like to use that word. It softens it. But the Bible uses words like evil and wickedness in regard to our sin. How often have we called ourselves evil or wicked? But you and I are! We are all one big hot mess. Our sin has ruined us.

Every one of us has experienced this. Every one of us has done something that we do not even want to think nor talk about. And yet God looks down at us in that condition, God sees everything in us! God knows everything of that sin, and says I’ve died for that sin. You are free. For freedom Christ has set us free.

In fact, our sin is our only qualification.

Look at the verse again. God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. It is in the midst of our sin that Christ saves us.

Our sin is the ONLY qualification, and we must still be in that sin to qualify, which of course we are.

But this is insane.

Look at the way Paul writes this phrase.

https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/rom/5/8/t_conc_1051008

God shows [commendeth], present tense. Christ died, past tense.

The death of Savior Jesus Christ still shows the love of God. That one event was enough to show us for all time his love because of the magnitude of the one who died and who he died for. God died for his enemies. Our sin qualifies us, and our faith justifies us through the redeeming work of Christ on the cross at Calvary.

Even the way Paul words this is both fascinating and surprising.

What Paul is saying here is there has been a changing of the guard.

Something has come in and something has gone out.

The Greek text here is saying that in the death of Christ, we sinners have been redeemed.

Even the syntax of the sentence is showing the gospel!

Not just the words, but how the words are arranged.

God shows his love to us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

God shows his love to us at a surprising cost.

Why did Jesus die for us?

The simple answer is because he loved us, to love us till the end he had to die.

But you may say, “There must have been another way. Surely someone didn’t have to die in order to save me!”

The Bible says God saves sinners and the only way to save sinners is for the sin to be paid for by someone.

And the Bible later says that the wages of sin is death. (Romans 6:20-23)

Therefore, there are 2 options: either we die for our sins or someone else does.

In God’s mercy, the gospel tells us that someone else has died in our place.

But what does this look like? Is the Father an angry God who only wants blood while Jesus is the loving, kind-hearted Son who desperately wants his Father’s heart to change? By no means! God is not unjust, and he is not unloving. But for God’s justice and God’s love to remain 1000% compatible a death had to occur.

It hurts the Father to lose his Son, but he does it because he loves us.

The death of Jesus was costly. He is the most glorious person in existence.

He was there from the beginning – not the beginning of the world, but from the beginning of eternity past. It was he through whom and by whom and for whom all things were created. It is he who upholds the universe by the word of his power. It is he who is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. It is he who was promised, and he who has come, and he who has died, and he who is reigning now and will reign forever. (John 1:1-5, Colossians 1:5-20, Hebrews 1)

It is he to whom every knee shall one day bow.

It is he, of whom the prophet Isaiah says, “he who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength.”

It is also he of whom Isaiah says, “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for or iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”

It is he that has given us access to the throne of grace.

This is Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of Lords.

The Son of God, the Son of man, the Alpha and the Omega, the one who was and is and is to come, the Messiah, the Christ.

This is your Savior! This is God.

And there was no greater pain in the universe than the exact moment Jesus died on the cross for the sins of the elect.

In that moment the Father turned his face away from the Son and gave him over to death so he might bring us who believe to glory.

It cost something to gain us back.

It cost the most valuable person in all existence.

It cost God himself.

You are bought with a price.

God isn’t angry with you because he has done everything, he needs to do to be happy with you forever. The price has already been paid in the midst of your sin so that you can be free from the consequences of your sin.

That is surprising!

THAT IS LOVE!

That is the surprising gospel!

So, if you are prone to think you are too good for God’s love: can you now see that you are a sinner in need of Christ’s saving work? Only when you see, only when you acknowledge this need can you have the righteousness you long for.

And if you are prone to think you are too unworthy for God’s love: can you now see that God saves sinners and sinners alone? Only when you and I see that, only we acknowledge that, then will we be able to have the joy we all long for.

Let’s all lean into the third way of the gospel:

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners (we are worse than we think), Christ died for us (we are more loved than we imagined).

Let me close with these words from Charles Spurgeon, 19th century preacher,

“If today you feel that sin is hateful to you, believe in Him who has said, ‘It is finished.’  Let me link your hand in mine.  Let us come together, both of us, and say, ‘Here are two poor naked souls, good Lord; we cannot clothe ourselves,’ and He will give us a robe, for ‘it is finished.’ . . . ‘But must we not add tears to it?’  ‘No,’ says He, ‘no, it is finished, there is enough.’ Child of God, will you have Christ’s finished righteousness today, and will you rejoice in it more than you ever have before?”

Receive this good news.

Come to Christ.

See what he has done for you. 

Come and live.

God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (5:8)

In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Let us Pray,

Lord Jesus Christ, your power is beyond compare. You turned water into wine. You cleansed the Leper, restored sight to the blind and made the deaf hear. You made the lame to walk. You healed the sick and raised the dead. You conquered death in your resurrection. Everything you touch is powerfully transformed. Let me know that powerful touch in my life. Lord, bless me and keep me, make your face shine upon me.  Through your mighty name, Gloria! Alleluia! Amen.

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