Peace

Re: Verse reading–Genesis 1:26-31; Romans 5:1-11 (day Six)
Jesus told the Samaritan woman, “God is seeking worshippers who worship in Spirit and truth.” (John 4:23) We are those worshippers, and not of our own making, but God’s. In Jesus’ death we have forgiveness of sin for all time, but in the resurrected life of Jesus we find our righteousness. In other words God required more than forgiveness for us to be at “peace” with Him; He required a righteousness that forgiveness alone could not provide (Romans 4:25). God transferred the infinite and beautiful righteousness of His resurrected Son onto us, those who by faith rest in the Son. So our slate was not only wiped clean from past and future sin, but our sin was replaced with the righteousness of God’s Son! That jaw-dropping transfer gives us “peace” with God, giving us the privilege to come to God as worshippers.
And by the way, this is no tenuous peace, but a true peace. It is not like King Saul, who changed his relationship with David on a dime. David never knew what Saul he would encounter. An angry Saul? Friendly? Ally? Enemy? Not so with God. The resurrected life of Jesus affords us true everlasting peace with God; we can “boldly approach the throne of grace!” (Hebrews 4:16) God made that happen; He sought after you and made a way!

Partial Obedience….

Re: Verse reading–1 Samuel 15:1-35 (day two)
But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep and of the oxen….and all that was good. 1 Samuel 15:9

We have a saying in our house, perhaps you do too. Partial obedience is disobedience. This has been a challenge to teach. Inevitably we hear a list of the things that were done, and to specification, and “didn’t I do a good job on this part?” Apparently, this was a hard lesson for King Saul as well. We don’t have the whole picture, we may never understand the whole outcome, all we may have is our assignment and our duty to obey. The cost was very steep for Saul. We will do well to learn a better kind of obedience, complete obedience.