The gospel is God comes in grace to free us from His wrath towards our sin. The grace means there is nothing that we can do which can force God to do that. There is no achievement, heritage or enough obedience to His law/standard that qualifies us to demand or expect the hand of grace. It is purely and totally God and it is always surprising to the recipient.
So no one can boast about anything!
Recently I listened to a man tell of his many accomplishments in the kingdom of God. He never mentioned God in all of those achievements.
One thing is certain, it is impossible to boast of your own salvation without mentioning God!
“Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.” (Romans 3 v 27-31)
Being made right before God is never achieved by working at being right or good or the best you can be.
Being made right before God is only by faith in the act of Christ on the cross and your daily trust in Jesus to follow Him.
With this there is no difference whether Jew or Gentile, it is the same for everyone in this world.
So should we not bother to try and be good?
Paul emphatically says NO!
Here is the Message to help us: “Not at all. What happens, in fact, is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.” (v31)
So we approach the Law/standard of God in the right way and Paul will throughout his letter teach a healthy approach to it. He already has said that we uphold the Law by being convicted of our own sin, “through the law we become conscious of our sin” (Romans 3 v 20) and he will say more later in this letter.
I’m trying to reach a target of £5,000 for Svetlana and Maxim. In 4 days Justgiving will release the funds to be sent to her. Please can you share the link on social media to help me get past that target, the link will take you to the story. Thank you to everyone who has already given. They are overwhelmed and thankful to God for you.
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/helpforsvetlana?utm_term=XdwgaAzGE
Missions Paul 