Thu Oct 9-It Is What It Is

Romans 3:23-26 (CEB)

23 All have sinned and fall short of God’s glory, 24 but all are treated as righteous freely by his grace because of a ransom that was paid by Christ Jesus. 25 Through his faithfulness, God displayed Jesus as the place of sacrifice where mercy is found by means of his blood. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness in passing over sins that happened before, 26 during the time of God’s patient tolerance. He also did this to demonstrate that he is righteous in the present time, and to treat the one who has faith in Jesus as righteous.


Reflection

ALL have sinned and fallen short, but ALL are treated as righteous by God’s Grace.

Really, what more is there to say? It is what it is – it is that simple! We are all sinners, but we are all healed by Grace, and we are all saints if we only choose to accept it. So, I could end this devotion right here, but oh, we are human though, aren’t we? That of course means that even though it is what it is and is so simple, we can’t let it be! We are complicated and we make things complicated.

I can speak for myself here – I am a person who uses the phrase “it is what it is” frequently and usually not when something is good – usually it is to try to get myself into a space to not put too much energy into something that I am not going to change, because I tend to think things should change, and I should be the one to change them! Then there is all of the judging and not really being able to imagine that a particular person could be a saint! Of course we are all sinners, but then there is that “level of sin” or assessing which sin is worse than another, so we judge the person who has the worst sin in our eyes.

We put all of these caveats on things we say we believe to be true – yes, we are all sinners, and we all are saints, but it is hard for us personally and collectively sometimes to truly believe it because we feel overwhelmed.

And the reason we feel overwhelmed? One – we are not God. Two – there really is a lot of bad stuff happening around us everyday. And sometimes it is really hard to see through that to recognize that God is still at work in the world and Jesus’ act of love for us still carries us through.

It should motivate us to know that ALL are equal in God’s eyes, but sometimes it just confuses us – both from our own perspective and from a judgement of others. We just need to focus on the fact that we are both sinners and saints in the making and so is everyone else – we are all in this together!

by Janet Waryck


For Pondering and Prayer

What do you think when you hear ALL are sinners and ALL are righteous? Are you comforted or are you perplexed, angry, judgmental? What moves you to the better thoughts?

Prayer: God of Grace, help us to recognize our own humanity and the humanity of others as we praise Jesus for the sacrifice for our salvation. Grant us humility and the ability to see others and ourselves as you see us – sinners and saints in one package. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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