Morning Prayer: 24 July – Romans 5:5b-8 ~ on knowing God loves us

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 5:5b-8 (NLT)

For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
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Reflection: Romans 5:5b-8 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

The results of justification (5: 1– 11)

The whole paragraph (verses 1– 11) depends on the opening words: Therefore, since we have been justified through faith.… Paul utters six bold assertions in the name of all whom God has justified.

d. We also rejoice in our sufferings (3– 8) Pt. 2 vs 5b-8

To be sure of God’s love… is the major secret of joy, peace, freedom, confidence and self-respect. The apostle spells out two major means by which we come to be sure that God loves us.

The first is that God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us (5b)…..

The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to all believers (since Paul is listing the consequences of justification), so that it is not possible to be justified by faith without at the same time being regenerated and indwelt by the Spirit….
The Holy Spirit was given to us at a particular time, namely at what is popularly called our ‘conversion’, or when we were justified.
Having been given to us, one of the Holy Spirit’s distinctive ministries is to pour God’s love into our hearts. Indeed, he has done this in such a way that the initial outpouring remains a permanent flood.

The second and objective way of assuring us of his love is that he has proved his love by Christ’s death on the cross…. For ‘Christ died for us while we were yet sinners, and that is God’s proof of his love towards us’ (8).

The essence of loving is giving…. ‘The Son of God … loved me and gave himself for me.’
The degree of love is measured partly by the costliness of the gift to the giver, and partly by the worthiness or unworthiness of the beneficiary.

Measured by these standards, God’s love in Christ is absolutely unique. For in sending his Son to die for sinners, he was giving everything, his very self, to those who deserved nothing from him except judgment.

God has both proved his love for us in the death of his Son (8) and poured his love into us by the gift of his Spirit (5). Objectively in history and subjectively in experience, God has given us good grounds for believing in his love.
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Canticle

Christ, as a light illumine and guide me. Christ, as a shield overshadow me. Christ under me; Christ over me; Christ beside me on my left and my right. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Christ as a light; Christ as a shield; Christ beside me on my left and my right.

Blessing

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you. May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 23 July – Romans 5:3-5 ~ on joy under fire

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 5:3-5s (NLT)

We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment.
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Reflection: Romans 5:3-5a (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

The results of justification (5: 1– 11)

d. We also rejoice in our sufferings (3– 8) Pt. 1 vs 3-5a

The ‘sufferings’ in mind are usually translated ‘tribulations’. These are not what we sometimes call ‘the trials and tribulations’ of our earthly existence, meaning our aches and pains, fears and frustrations, deprivations and disappointments, but rather thlipseis (literally, ‘pressures’), referring in particular to the opposition and persecution of a hostile world… the suffering which God’s people must expect in the last days before the end.

What attitude should Christians adopt to these ‘tribulations’? Far from merely enduring them with stoic fortitude, we are to rejoice in them. This is not masochism, however, the sickness of finding pleasure in pain. It is rather the recognition that there is a divine rationale behind suffering.

First, suffering is the one and only path to glory. It was so for Christ; it is so for Christians. As Paul will soon express it, we are ‘co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory’ (8: 17). That is why we are to rejoice in them both.

Secondly, if suffering leads to glory in the end, it leads to maturity meanwhile….

Suffering produces perseverance (endurance)… because without suffering there would be nothing to endure.
Perseverance produces character… the quality of a person who has been tested and has passed the test.
Character produces hope… because the God who is developing our character in the present can be relied on for the future too.

Thirdly, suffering is the best context in which to become assured of God’s love. Of course many people will immediately assert the contrary, since it is suffering which makes them doubt God’s love. But consider Paul’s argument. He has traced the sequence of chain reactions from tribulation to perseverance, from perseverance to character, and from character to hope. Now he adds that hope does not disappoint us, and never will. It will never betray us by proving to be an illusion after all.

But how do we know this? What is the ultimate ground on which our Christian hope rests, our hope of glory? It is the steadfast love of God. The reason our hope will never let us down is that God will never let us down. His love will never give us up.
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Canticle

Blessing

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 22 July – Romans 5:1-2 ~ on peace, privilege and joy

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 5:1-2 (NLT)

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. Because of our faith, Christ has brought us into this place of undeserved privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to sharing God’s glory.
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Reflection: Romans 5:1-2 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

The results of justification (5: 1– 11)

a. We have peace with God (1)

The pursuit of peace is a universal human obsession, whether it is international, industrial, domestic or personal peace. Yet more fundamental than all these is peace with God, the reconciled relationship with him which is the first blessing of justification. Thus ‘justification’ and ‘reconciliation’ belong together, for ‘God does not confer the status of righteousness upon us without at the same time giving himself to us in friendship and establishing peace between himself and us’…..

And this peace becomes ours now through our Lord Jesus Christ…

b. We are standing in grace (2a)

Literally, ‘through him [sc. Christ] we have obtained our introduction into this grace in which we have taken our stand’. ‘Grace’ is normally God’s free and unmerited favour, his undeserved, unsolicited and unconditional love. But here it is not so much his quality of graciousness as ‘the sphere of God’s grace’ (NEB), our privileged position of acceptance by him…..

First, we have gained access into this grace…. Secondly, we have taken our stand firmly in or on this grace into which we have been introduced.

Justified believers enjoy a blessing far greater than a periodic approach to God or an occasional audience with the king. We are privileged to live in the temple and in the palace…. Our relationship with God, into which justification has brought us, is not sporadic but continuous, not precarious but secure.

c. We rejoice in [our] hope of the glory of God (2b)

Christian hope is not uncertain, like our ordinary everyday hopes about the weather or our health; it is a joyful and confident expectation which rests on the promises of God, as we saw in the case of Abraham. And the object of our hope is the glory of God (2), namely his radiant splendour which will in the end be fully displayed.

Already his glory is being continuously revealed in the heavens and the earth. Already it has been uniquely made manifest in Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, most notably in his death and resurrection. One day, however, the curtain will be raised and the glory of God will be fully disclosed.
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Canticle

Blessing

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 21 July – Romans 4:23-25 ~ on learning from Abraham’s faith

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 4:23-25 (NLT)

And when God counted him as righteous, it wasn’t just for Abraham’s benefit. It was recorded for our benefit, too, assuring us that God will also count us as righteous if we believe in him, the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was handed over to die because of our sins, and he was raised to life to make us right with God.
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Reflection: Romans 4:23-25 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

The whole Abraham story, like the rest of Scripture, was written for our instruction (15: 4). So the same God, who credited faith to Abraham as righteousness, will credit righteousness to us also if we believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead (24).

Abraham was not unique in his experience of being justified by faith. For this is God’s way of salvation for everybody. But the God we are to trust in is not only the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; he is also the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification (25). ‘This verse’, writes Hodge, ‘is a comprehensive statement of the gospel.’
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We today are much more fortunate than Abraham, and have little or no excuse for unbelief. For we live on this side of the resurrection. Moreover, we have a complete Bible in which both the creation of the universe and the resurrection of Jesus are recorded. It is therefore more reasonable for us to believe than it was for Abraham.

Of course we have to make sure that the promises we are seeking to inherit are neither wrenched out of their biblical context nor the product of our own subjective fancy, but truly apply to us. Then we can lay hold of them, even against all human hope, yet in hope (18), that is, in the confidence of God’s faithfulness and power.

Only so shall we prove to be genuine children of our great spiritual forefather Abraham.

In hope, against all human hope,
Self-desperate, I believe …
Faith, mighty faith, the promise sees,
And looks to that alone;
Laughs at impossibilities
And cries: It shall be done!

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Canticle

Blessing

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 20 July – Romans 4:17b-22 ~ on the reasonableness of faith

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 4:17b-22 (NLT)

This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing. Even when there was no reason for hope, Abraham kept hoping — believing that he would become the father of many nations. For God had said to him, “That’s how many descendants you will have!” And Abraham’s faith did not weaken, even though, at about 100 years of age, he figured his body was as good as dead—and so was Sarah’s womb.

Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. And because of Abraham’s faith, God counted him as righteous.
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Reflection: Romans 4:17b-22 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

The description of faith as ‘reasonable’ comes as a surprise to many people, since they have always supposed that faith and reason were alternative means of grasping reality, and mutually incompatible….

Although, to be sure, faith goes beyond reason, it always has a firmly rational basis. In particular , faith is believing or trusting a person, and its reasonableness depends on the reliability of the person being trusted.

It is always reasonable to trust the trustworthy. And there is nobody more trustworthy than God, as Abraham knew, and as we are privileged to know more confidently than Abraham because we live after the death and resurrection of Jesus through which God has fully disclosed himself and his dependability.

In particular, before we are in a position to believe God’s promises, we need to be sure both of his power (that he is able to keep them) and of his faithfulness (that he can be relied on to do so). It is these two attributes of God which were the foundations of Abraham’s faith, and on which Paul reflects in this passage.

The power of God: it is out of nothing that he created the universe, and out of death that he raised Jesus. The creation and the resurrection were and remain the two major manifestations of the power of God.

The faithfulness of God: Abraham glorified God by letting God be God, and by trusting him to be true to himself as the God of creation and resurrection. It is this concept of ‘letting God be God’ which forms a natural transition from his power to his faithfulness.

There is a fundamental correspondence between our faith and God’s faithfulness, so much so that Jesus’ command, ‘Have faith in God,’ has sometimes been roughly but justly paraphrased, ‘Reckon on the faithfulness of God.’ Behind all promises lies the character of the person who makes them.
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