For when we were still wothout strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5: 6-8 NKJV
It's a question so many others before me have asked time and again. Aware of our own shortcomings as people, we ask ourselves just how anyone could ever love someone like us. For as a people mankind has been rsponsible for some pretty serious offenses. We often hear of wars and conflicts waged "In Gods name." However, I truly believe in my heart that war is not one of our heavenly fathers desires for his children. Yes, conflicts arise, but I believe these arise out of our own emotions and anger than from anything God has done. And so it goes, down through the ages mankind has tried his best to be the standard of good behavior and failed. It's against this backdrop that many of us initialy feel that God could never love such a imperfect people. However, nothing could be further from the truth! For God knows us and our struggles intimately, which is why He has provided for our redemption in spite of ourselves.
Who shall seperate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to seperate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8: 35-39
It is in Romans 5:8 that we get a glimpse of the undying love that God has for us. For as the apostle Paul tells us, "While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." And what of Paul? For this is the man whose purpose it was to bring persecution to the early church and followers of Jesus. Raised in the Jewish religious traditions of the day, Saul sought after those who were of the church to do them harm. Yet, that all changed one day on a road to Damascus. For in due time, God chose a sinner such as Saul to bring his message of love and forgiveness to the world. By his own admission, it was Paul who considered himself to be "chief" amog all sinners. Paul knew his shortcomings, but he also knew of the life changing love that he had experienced through Jesus that day. When we feel the weight of what we have done and feel that God could never possibly love such a sinner as ourselves, we do well to remember that God no longer looks upon a sinner! No, for through the very life of Jesus given for us on the cross, Gods love has made us free of that sin we once carried.
~Scott~
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