Feb. 23 – God Endures
During Lent, our weekly e-devotion will be taken from the “God Acts” devotional booklet. Please follow along in the booklet for a new devotion each day.
Romans 3:21-24
But now, apart from law, the righteousness of God has been disclosed, and is attested by the law and the prophets, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus
It can be easy to internalize our struggles. We know all too well that dropping, pit in the stomach feeling when something has gone horribly wrong, and particularly when we recognize it is our fault. Our tendency is to push that feeling away, down deep into hearts and our minds. We think we can work through those feelings. Martin Luther tells us to avoid this mistake. Holding these things in our hearts and minds can lead us to be overcome by guilt. We certainly need to recognize our sin and guilt and take responsibility for it, but we ought not let it consume us. Rather, we can visualize our sin, but visualize Christ holding it. We recognize it as ours, but with Christ holding it we can then see that it no longer has the power to paralyze us and hold us back. We can be freed of that sin so that we can start anew.
If we allow sin to remain in our conscience and try to deal with it there, or if we look at sin in our heart, it will be much too strong for us and will live on forever. But if we behold it resting on Christ and [see it] overcome by his resurrection, and then boldly believe this, even it is dead and nullified. Sin cannot remain on Christ, since it is swallowed up by his resurrection. – Martin Luther