Boast Post III, God's Perfect Timing; Romans 5-8

May the mumbling commence!

We boast in our healthy relationship with God – a relationship that is possible through the work of Jesus Christ.  Before Jesus, such a life was impossible for us.  Read from Romans chapter five (Peterson’s The Message paraphrase):

Christ arrives right on time to make this happen.  He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready.  He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready.  And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway.  We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice.  But God put his love on the line for us by offering hid Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.

Now that we are set right with God by means of this sacrificial death, the consummate blood sacrifice, there is no longer a question of being at odds with God in any way.  If when we were at our worst, we were put on friendly terms with God by the sacrificial death of his Son, now that we’re at our best, just think of how our lives will expand and deepen by means of his resurrection life!  Now that we have actually received this amazing friendship with God, we are no longer content to simply say it in plodding prose.  We sing and shout our praises to God through Jesus, the Messiah! (Verses 6-11)

God always has perfect timing.  God did not wait on us to be ready, so do not think that you need to achieve a certain level of righteousness to enter into relationship with God.  God has come much more than halfway.  God came all the way down to give us a hand up.  We need only to grasp that hand and stand.

God knows we are weak – better than we do ourselves.  God reaches out with amazing effort even at His own pain and suffering.  Our Creator does all of this without any guarantee that we will ever respond. Now that kind of love is one to sing and shout about!  I boast in the love of the Lord God!

Only because of God can we be at our best.  Expand and deepen our lives through the working of your Spirit, O God.  Usher us into this amazing relationship with you.

And we will have plenty of reasons to boast in our God!

Enough mumbling (boasting) for now…

Peace Out