Category: Devotions

The first benefit of Christ as Saviour is peace with God. This is the first of seven blessings delineated in Rom. 5:1-11 for every child of God. There is no more enmity but reconciliation with God. A reconciliation that comes because man’s sin has been fully dealt with by Christ’s death on the cross – Colossians 1:20-21 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. 21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled.

God’s wrath is averted. Friendship and goodwill with God restored. This is the powerful consequence of what faith in Christ brings for the sinner. He is translated from one consigned to hell to one bound for heaven.

As Jesus said, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” (Matt.19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27) Sarah laughed at the thought. It reflected her unbelief (Gen. 18:13, 15). God asked Abraham why did Sarah laugh? God answered to quell all doubt, “Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return unto thee, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.” (Gen. 18:14).

Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. The gospel likewise is to be understood by faith.

The Apostle Paul cited Abraham’s faith for our learning. He wanted his readers to believe God’s way of salvation through Jesus Christ. God indeed opened the dead womb of Sarah who has long passed the age of child-bearing. Abraham’s faith became sight in the fullness of time when Sarah conceived and brought forth Isaac. Our faith in God’s plan of salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ will be a reality when we receive the resurrected the body at Christ’s second coming. Today, we, like Abraham, must take God at His Word, to patiently wait, for our change to come. Hear the blessed truth concerning the resurrection from the dead.

John Newton was a slave trader turned Pastor and the writer of the hymn “Amazing Grace”. As a slave trader on board a slave ship, he learned all the evils of the seaman’s life. How could such a sinner as John Newton be saved? John Newton’s conversion is the amazing story of God’s saving grace. God intervened in his life.

Cicero in De Republica acknowledged the universality of God’s law as summarized by the Ten Commandments rendering man without excuse not to be judged by it. He testified rightly, “There is indeed a true law, right reason, conformable to nature, diffused among all, unchanging, eternal, which by commanding, urges to duty, by prohibiting, deters from fraud; not in vain commanding or prohibiting the good, though by neither moving the wicked. This law cannot be abrogated, nor may anything be withdrawn from it; it is in the power of no senate or people to set us free from it; not is there to be sought any extraneous teacher or interpreter of it. It shall not be one law at Rome, another at Athens; one now, another at some future time; but one law, alike eternal, unchangeable, shall bind all nations and through time; and one shall be the common teacher, as it were, and governor of all – God, who is Himself the Author, the Administrator, and Enactor of this law.”

I recall giving a bible to a retiring department manager who worked in Singapore for over 30 years as an expatriate. He saw the development of the semiconductor industry from its infancy in his lifetime. His comment when he received the Bible was “Faith”! It was my prayer that he understood the faith of the Bible and be saved, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Mark 8:36-37).

For the Jews, God meant circumcision to be an outward sign of an inward faith. It was an external manifestation of the faith that is in the heart. An evidence of the change that this is a people belonging to the living God of heaven. In the New Testament, water baptism has replaced circumcision as the outward affirmation of an inward faith.

Whether Jew or Gentile, circumcision or uncircumcision, we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ. This is the blessedness that the Apostle Paul was speaking about. He cited Abraham and David’s example to bring home the truth that the Old Testament saints were saved also by faith in Jesus Christ.

The psalmist David gives us the portrait of the man blessed of God declared in psalm 32:1-2, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity… ”

The glorious gospel is preached here by the psalmist David, explains the Apostle Paul, when David speaks of the blessings of sins forgiven and reconciliation with God.

The Apostle Paul declared in truth that by grace was Abraham saved. He did not receive salvation by any work that merited his salvation. It was all by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ that righteousness was credit to Abraham. He did nothing to earn his salvation. This is the truth concerning how a man is saved. It is the God-given means whereby man can escape the judgement of hell fire and receive eternal life.

Jesus testified that although He is descended from Abraham, He preceded Abraham in John 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. Jesus existed before Abraham was born. This is only possible because Jesus is God.

Abraham was not saved because he obeyed God’s instruction to be circumcised in the flesh. Nothing of what Abraham did gain him any merit before God to justify his salvation. Abraham was saved because he believed in God’s plan of salvation through the Man Jesus Christ who is God Himself! The great truth we declare to the world. All men must humble themselves before God to accept this glorious way by which they are saved! Amen.