So, that was quite a job description we looked at from verse 1 hey! Try writing a resume for that one! check out what I a little further on in verses 5 and 6.
Romans 1:5-6 “Through him and for his name’s sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.”
There is nothing about us that warrants us being chosen by God. It is not by our resume or our role or our referees that we were chosen. It is not because of anything good we have done or any evil we have resisted. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians says “God set me apart from birth and called me by his grace” (Gal 1:15).
Grace is receiving something you did not deserve. It is purely by Gods grace that we have been saved. Mercy is being spared something you did deserve. We have been shown mercy, because for our sin we deserved to be separated from God forever. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”(Rom 5:8)
While we were still sinners. While we were separated from God, undeserving of any merit or favour, dead in our sin, God chose us and rescued us. It is from this point that we are called, and called to belong to Jesus Christ and given his mandate to share it with the world. Not because of our accomplishments, but through his work on the cross.
And, here is the most amazing find in this passage – for his name’s sake. In the Greek, it means ‘on his behalf’. Woah, not only are we totally undeserving of the calling, and given the amazing blessing of belonging to him, we are now his representatives here on earth, living and doing and speaking on his behalf. What a mandate! Set apart for the gospel of God and chosen despite our sinfulness, to be his ambassadors.
“We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (1 Cor 5:20-21)
Father I was totally undeserving of your grace and mercy yet you sent your son, even when I was an enemy of yours and dead in my sin, so that I could be in relationship with you. Thankyou. Please take me as I am and use me to reach others for you. I am yours.
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