ERCC DEVOTIONAL (TEKAN) DAILY SPIRITUAL DIET; MONDAY 11TH SEPTEMBER, 2023

TEXT: ROMANS 4: 1 - 12.

SPIRITUAL FOCUS: ONLY BY FAITH CAN WE PLEASE GOD.

Paul is not tired of talking about being saved by righteousness. Today in the study he continues to interpret this statement as he compares Abraham to a man whose faith pleased God, whom God called 

His beloved. The time or the age of Abraham, the Bible was not yet written therefore we cannot tell how he was able to escape by keeping the laws. But there is good evidence that it is by faith that God is pleased with him, (vs. 3). 

The law tells a person how to please God, but not by being saved, a person can be saved. The Lord God does not save by works. The valve of salvation is far greater than that, for salvation is a gift from God to those who believe in Him. 

It is good to know that the gift is not a reward; (vs. 8). The prophet David emphasized this, asserting that whoever is forgiven by God, his sins will never be counted again (Ps. 32: 1, 2). God often pardons and expiates our sins and transgressions (Ps. 103: 10). 

Today there are people who want to be saved by their own efforts. This is vanity, yea, it is a sore travail through actions. And it can be found only in Christ Jesus, who gave His life for us, sacrificing on the cross.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: No one save himself.

PRAYER: Lord God, in the name of Christ Jesus I ask You to forgive me of my sins by Your mercy, Amen.

                     

                            ROMANS  4: 1 - 12 (RSV).

1 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?

2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

4 Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due.

5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

6 just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works:

7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered;

8 blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.”

9 Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness.

10 How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised.

11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well,

12 and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.