By the grace of God, His underserved love for us, Christians have been brought to faith in Jesus Christ. We believe this because we believe in Him as our Lord and Savior. By faith we have been connected to Him (through Word and Sacrament).
By grace through faith we have been made members of His family and if we are members of His family, also heirs of all the blessing our gracious and loving God has to give us.
The blessings of God are many. They’re temporal and spiritual. But chief among them is the forgiveness of sins, without which, we would be separated from God forever. In Christ Jesus, we have been redeemed (bought back and paid for) by Christ’s suffering and death—standing in our place and doing for us what we were unable to do. His death is ours and in our stead He earned for us our forgiveness. By His resurrection, we have been given this certainty— that before God our Father our sins are forgiven; we’re at peace with Him (reconciled unto Him), and members of His household. These are free gifts given to us through the cross of Jesus.
Added to these gifts, by grace we are able to approach God with freedom and confidence as we are taught: “In Christ and through faith in Him we may approach God with freedom and confidence” (Ephesians 3:12).
Yes, we who were dead in trespasses and sin may approach God; we who are timid and shy because of the sin still with us are free and confident to approach God without fear, without the threat of punishment, with the righteousness of Jesus Christ upon us. This is what God’s grace is and what God’s grace toward us does, made possible only and alone through faith in Jesus Christ.
My friends, Jesus Christ is our “in” with God, the Father. In Him we can freely and confidently talk to our heavenly Father about anything and everything, no longer guilt-ridden or living in fear. Do you have sin and grief to bear? …pain and sorrow to carry? …trouble anywhere? … temptations everywhere? Are you thinking no one cares?
In Christ Jesus we find our best friend, the friend of sinners. He was tempted as we are. He wept. He had no place to call home. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering” (Isaiah 53:3).
He understands you and your needs. He loves you; He comforts you; He gives you exactly what you need. Like a doctor He prescribes the best medicine; like medicine, He heals you; like your Savior, He saves you by His cross made certain by His rising from the dead to give you new life and eternal life too.
All this comes to you, to us, by means of His grace through faith, freely given. This is our Good News that enables us to live each and every day with freedom and confidence—to approach our heavenly Father with our doubts, fears, burdens, worries, and such—for we are His children and heirs of eternal salvation for Jesus’ sake.
Each month the clergy of the Cook County Ministerium offer spiritual reflections. This week’s contributor is the Rev. Dean Rudloff of Life in Christ Lutheran Church (LCMS).
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