Unmerited Joy

March 9

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that mankind has a sin problem. Of course, there are the obvious offenders—the Hitlers who orchestrate genocide, the terrorists who wantonly kill the innocent, the unscrupulous politicians who weigh future generations down with the burden of debt.

But what about the rest of us? What about the guy who manipulates the truth in order to attain a promotion that someone else deserves? What about the high school girl who lies about someone to keep her out of the ‘popular click’? Of course, by our yardstick of sin, the latter are virtually imperceptible compared to the former. But what’s God’s viewpoint?

The Word tells us that if anyone has broken the law to the least degree, he is guilty of the entirety of the law (James 2:10). By God’s holy standard of Himself, there is no one, not Gandhi, not Mother Theresa, not your dear, sweet grandmother, who is free of the burden of sin. That’s why Jesus came to be our Savior. He lived the perfect, sinless life we are incapable of living and He accounts His righteousness to me, to you.

As Paul states it in his letter to the Galatians, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’” In Ephesians 1:7 he states again, “In Jesus we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sin, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.” Our redemption is unmerited; we can’t earn it—but—Oh, the precious joy of receiving it!