Peace with God

This week we will be focusing on how we can obtain peace in our relationship with God, so we can live daily and victoriously in His grace.

Let’s start our time together today in prayer:

Lord Jesus, I am so privileged to be able to step into a conversation with You any time I want to! Your presence is so precious to me. I pray that as I read about and contemplate Your amazing grace toward me, that You will show me the areas of my heart that are in darkness, and bathe them in Your light and grace once more!

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. 2 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.

I have been the recipient of grace from loved ones more times than I can count in my life. Whether I had screwed up a promise I made, lost my temper, or said words I shouldn’t have said, I created a break in the relationship that needed mending. I knew I had to apologize... but would that make the relationship right again? It all depended on if the other person extended grace to me and gave me another chance. Take a moment to reflect: Have you ever created barriers in any of your close relationships? What did it take, or what would it take, to make it right again?

Our relationship with God was severed by our mistakes as well. He was a sinless, perfect Father who created a beautiful garden of a world for us to be in relationship with Him. But then sin entered the picture, and He was no longer able to walk with us in peace. A holy God could never just overlook our sin, because sin brings spiritual death with it. Something needed to be done! How could our relationship with God be mended in a way that brings life back into us? Have you felt a heart-longing for God, only to be confronted with feelings of unworthiness?

Unlike our earthy relationships, where it often takes effort on our part to rebuild after mistakes, God realized there was nothing we could do to repair our relationship with Him. We were powerless in our sin. So He sent His own Son to take our punishment of death for us, so we could be made right in His sight once more. The relationship could be made new by one simple act: placing our faith in Jesus! “We have peace with God” once more “because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us” (verse 1)! Are you striving to “do right” so that you can “feel” accepted in your relationship with God? Or have you made the decision to daily place your faith in Jesus as the only way to be made right in God’s sight?

Jesus laid down His life for us so we can share in His glory! What an incomprehensible thought! Our sins haven’t just been forgiven so that we can start trying to do better on our own. Instead, God loved us so much that He has given us a glorious inheritance, where we can stand in confidence and expectation as His beloved children! “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” (verse 2).

Is your glorious and redeemed self standing in confidence before your Father God today? Take this moment to close your eyes and picture yourself throwing off any self-focused, striving mentalities that have taken hold of you, and picture yourself bathed in a circle of light with the overflowing grace of God flooding over you.

I pray that as you go about your week and engage with the word of God, you will more fully realize the extravagant grace in which you stand! May you be so filled with confidence and joy in His presence that it overflows into your daily life.