ASLC Devotions - Tuesday

Tuesday, March 22

Romans 4:13

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

 

Really? What promise? This is Lent. What does Abraham have to do with us or with Jesus dying on the cross—and how can such a barbaric thing have any part in a loving God's plan?

 

I never understood the plan for Jesus until I read about Abraham. In his letter to the Romans, Paul shows that faith, not religious rules and requirements (such as the Law of Moses), makes both Jews and non-Jews eligible to have our sins erased, which is necessary to be in communion with a holy God. He holds up Abraham as the example of faith.

 

Abraham lived before Moses and so was not subject to the Law, yet he was “reckoned righteous” because he believed God when God told him and his wife Sarah that they would be blessed with many descendants and land. In fact, God sealed the covenant, as was the custom between king and vassal, by passing between two lines of cut up sacrificed animals. He was saying, in effect, that if I don't honor my promise, then I will die. And if you and your descendants don't do your part (believing God), then…I will die(!!!) Well, Abraham got the descendants and the descendants got the land but they didn't honor God, so God, who is unable to break promises, had to die. Jesus became the sacrifice so that we (Abraham’s spiritual descendants by faith) can live in God's presence forever.

 

Make any sense now? It brings to mind the hymn: Amazing Love, how can it be, that you my King would die for me?

Linda Foltz