Grace For Your Day April 3

How firm is your salvation? Is there anything that can mess it up?

If you lived for 100 years, do you think it would still survive? If you lasted for a millennium, do you think the Lord could still sustain it?

 I believe that He would because Romans 8:28-39 says:

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written,

“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;
We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is one of the most powerful passages in the Bible because it shows us how firm our salvation is. Verses 29-30 demonstrate that it was decided before time began (“For those whom He foreknew”). Verse 34 says that it was settled at the cross and verse 37 says that it makes us overwhelming conquerors. However, the point is that it can never be lost. In light of what Jesus has done for us, there is nothing that can take it away. Paul is so passionate about this that he allows this subject to consume his thoughts for almost half of the chapter. As the New Testament Scholar J. Vernon McGee once wrote:

Romans 8 starts with no condemnation. It ends with no separation and, in between, all things work together for your good. Can you think of anything better than that?

The answer is “no” because Paul demonstrates that the Lord has made it possible for our redemption to be eternally secure and one key ingredient in that is the resurrection. Verse 34 says, “Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He Who died, yes, rather who was raised” because the resurrection proved that Jesus’ sacrifice was accepted by God. It demonstrated that our sin had been entirely paid for at the cross to the point that there was nothing left over to pay.

Please join us as we talk about that important subject this Easter Sunday at Grace Fellowship Church. The service begins at 9:30 and it will be livestreamed on our You Tube Channel for all those who cannot make it in person.  

I look forward to celebrating our risen Savior with you. – Jeremy Cagle