"It's all good"

Romans 8:9-11

Have you ever been asked what has Jesus done for you?  Maybe even a better question is “What is Jesus doing in your life now”?  The first part of the question is explained in Romans 8:3-5, you and I showed up on planet earth with a dead spirit that was passed down because of the sin of one man, Adam, and God gave the law through Moses to expose our need for a Savior.  This is of interest because mankind could not keep the laws of God and it exposed our need for a redeemer and yet in our foolish hearts mankind added many more rules or laws for the people to live under, now folks that sums up the actions of religion in a nutshell.

Do you recall the scribe that asks Jesus which commandment is the most important, and Jesus gave the answer in Mark’s gospel chapter 12:29-31.  The most important was to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  Now that big, really big, but who is to say one is not doing that.  Without taking a breath Jesus said, the second commandment is this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no other commandment greater than these.”  The second is  important in that it exposes not only our heart but is seen in our actions.

We were set free from the condemnation of the law by the act of what the Scriptures refer to as the second man, Jesus the Son of God.  Because sin is passed down from the dad, we know that the Holy Spirit put Jesus into Mary and  He came to planet earth without sin.  The Bible tells us Jesus was the pure Lamb of God, and He became our sin offering, because Jesus in real human flesh (without sin) became the perfect offering.  Jesus fulfilled the law’s demands in life and in death and broke the bondage sin had over sinful man in His human body on the cross.

Verses 9-11, “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” 

Because the Spirit of God dwells in you, then the answer to the second question should already be on your lips; you recall the second question, “What is Jesus doing in your life now”?  I have a friend named David Bush, and it matters not what is going on in his life, good or bad, when ask how are you, his answer is, “it’s all good.”  In light of what Jesus has done for David, it is all-good, no matter what adversity comes into his life, now that is a great testimony!

But listen to the apostle Paul’s testimony; “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

What a contrast to the testimony of a man with a dead spirit or a person walking in the flesh, it is all-bad or it is all-good and I’m more than a conqueror through what Jesus is doing in my life. 

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice