A New Status With God

God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. . . . For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
–Romans 5:8, 10

You have probably heard an illustration of God’s grace that goes something like this: A little girl is suffering from a rare blood disease. She needs a transfusion in order to save her life, but because of her rare blood type, the only donor who is immediately available is her little brother. So the parents and the doctor explain to the little boy that his sister needs the blood transfusion, and he volunteers. After the transfusion is completed, the little boy looks up at the doctor and says, “When do I die?” He thought giving a transfusion meant giving up his own life, and he was willing to do that for the sister he loved.

That story does not really capture what God did for us. Instead, imagine the same story, but the characters are switched: No longer is it a little girl needing a transfusion; it is a prisoner on death row, awaiting execution because he murdered a boy. And the person who volunteers to give the transfusion is the father of the boy who was murdered. Can you imagine somebody being willing to give up his life in order to save the person who had killed his own son?

Yet that is exactly what God did for us. Paul wrote in Romans 5, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. . . . For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (vv. 8, 10).

We were not friends of God when Christ died for us. On the contrary–we were enemies of God when He reconciled us to Himself. Somebody has said that before we are Christians, we are so opposed to God that we would pull God off His throne and destroy Him if we could. That is how opposed an unregenerate heart is toward the things of God. Yet that is when God transformed our lives. His amazing grace gave us a new status with Him: no longer are we enemies of God, but we are friends of God. That is one of the radical changes God’s grace brings into our lives–not only do we have a new awareness of sin, but we also have a new status with God.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “Under New Management” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2020.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org