Monday, February 24

Most people approach their relationship with God based upon their good and bad behaviors. Most religions argue that the afterlife hinges on how a person behaves. Isn’t it true that when you have a good day in terms of behavior it’s easy to approach God, but when you have a bad day there’s isolation and separation? The problem with this approach is that it underestimates what Christ did at the cross and overestimates our good and bad deeds.

In our world, we approach our relationships to each other based upon our behavior. In our world, when we offend or are offended we erect a wall of separation. And the nature of the offense determines how long that wall of separation last, and in some cases the wall never comes down. When it comes to our relationship with God, we tend to apply this same system. It’s probably true that when you sin against God a wall of separation goes up, but I guarantee you that God didn’t put up that wall, you did.

The Bible says that God reconciled us to Himself, not the contrary; we did not reconcile ourselves to God. Being reconciled means that we are now compatible to God. What made us incompatible were our sins. God is a perfect and holy God, and we are imperfect and sinful people. In order for God to make us compatible He had to deal with our sins. So, he placed ALL of our past, present and future sins on Christ. The end result is that we’ve been made compatible to God. He doesn’t count our sins against us. The wall that once separated us is now gone. Therefore, we need not approach God based upon our deeds… good or bad. We can approach Him freely based upon what He has done.

Bible reading
2 Corinthians 5:17-19, 21 NIV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Heavenly Father, help me understand that your sacrifice on the cross is greater then all of my sins. Therefore I don’t need to hide from you.