We are told that we have hope in God. But what is that hope, and how do disciples of Christ build it? This daily devotional looks at how justification, faith, and grace are the foundation of peace, holiness, and hope.
Nuggets
- In order to have hope, we need to be justified; in order to be justified, we have to have faith.
- We get faith through grace.
- God readily gives us peace and helps us grow into holiness.
- Because of the magnificence of His glory, we have the assurance that God can provide the atonement for our sins.
Devotions in the What Is Hope? series
We really haven’t spent much time taking about the hope that we have in Jesus. We’ve mentioned it in passing a couple of times, but we haven’t dug in to really understand it.
Let’s remedy that now.
This year, we are looking at self-discipline. We are using Vincent’s The Lesson of Ripeness sermon to look at the need to grow in our relationship with God. We morphed learning enough to be a teacher into determining some areas we need to grow so we can be mature disciples.
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Vincent talked about the assurance of Christian truth. We see assurance as hope.
We have hope because it is based on other elements. That means it is going to take more than this devotional to work all the way through this.
Let's Put It into Context
Hope is where we desire for something that we believe is obtainable.
Our foundation is built on the blessings of faith, hope, peace, joy, comfort, and glory. It is only through Jesus’ love that we have hope. If Jesus is not Lord of our lives, we do not have hope. If Jesus didn’t justify us, we wouldn’t have hope.
We show God’s merit when we give Him reverence. When we respond in humility, we show that we agree that He is higher than us. Our trust, love, and hope show how much we believe in His love and provision.
Because we have the hope, we believe in the ultimate triumph of Truth. That will be Jesus’ second coming.
The Foundation for Justification Is Faith
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5: 1-2 NIV).
In order to have hope, we need to be justified. In order to be justified, we have to have faith. We get faith through grace. Let’s look at all of those elements.
Justification
Justification is the act of God as Judge pronouncing us guiltless through the atonement of Jesus Christ, which frees us from sin. Jesus justifies us when we put our lives in His hand.
We need to understand what all that means. Jesus justifies us — we don’t justify ourselves.
What that does for us is change us. That drops us into the past, present, and future definitions of being perfected.
Since the perfected state indicates spiritual wholeness or completeness, we were changed immediately at conversion (the past) so that we can be become perfected.
Glossary
The Homilist reminded us a couple of things. We need this justification because of the sin in our lives.
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Justification, though, does not make us righteous. God counts us as righteous. “And the Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’ — and he was called a friend of God” (Jas. 2: 23 ESV)
Getting there is a process — the sanctification process (the present).
We will not be whole or complete until we are called home at the end of our lives or when Jesus returns (the future).
Faith
Faith is the belief that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives.
What is one of the things we have to believe? We need to believe that Jesus was the substitute in paying the penalty for our sins.
Jesus substituted — became the propitiation — for us so He could do the hard stuff, the stuff we would never be able to do. Jesus knew God’s wrath had to be appeased so He shed His blood to pay the price for our sins.
The Homilist explained that the substitution is not automatic. It was written, “Substitution, to be effectual, not only requires its acceptance by the judge, but the acceptance of the Saviour by the sinner as his Substitute. Faith is that acceptance by the sinner.”
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But faith is hard, isn’t it? We are so programmed to be independent, to rely on ourselves. That makes it difficult for us to rely on God.
We have to look at terminology, though. Magee wrote, “… we are not justified because of our faith, but by our faith” (emphasis added).
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We can ask for the gift of salvation as many times as we want. It is not until God offers us the gift can we take it.
Okay. Let’s do some substitutions. We are not justified because of the reason of our faith, but by the degree of our faith.
How I read that is it has to be a heart faith, not a head faith. We can’t just know God. We have to totally be faithful and and fully submitted to Him.
When we have heart faith, we have a closer relationship with God. That is because the communication is there.
We can also read that to be faithful is a condition of our justification. We don’t have the faith — we aren’t justified.
Grace
Grace is a free and unmerited gift from Heavenly Father given through His Son, Jesus Christ that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit. Because of God’s infinite grace, He devised the plan of salvation that made Jesus our Redeemer in order to forgive us of our sins.
Let’s say that again. God’s grace is free. We don’t have to clean up our acts before He will accept us.
It isn’t grace light. This isn’t God doing the minimum so that we might be redeemed. This is God giving His only Son to die to that we might live.
What Are the Fruits of Justification through Faith?
If salvation did not provide peace and holiness, Magee argued that it would be a false religion. God readily gives us peace and helps us grow into holiness.
Peace
Peace is an inward tranquility resulting from a balanced life with spiritual order, equity, and truth. Our peace stems from God’s mercy. God’s mercy is the unexpected way God responds in love to our needs.
Glossary
When we are justified, we gain God’s peace. Magee wrote, “This justification is indispensable to peace with God, for guilt cannot be at peace with justice.”
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We have peace with God by being restored to Him. That means that our relationships with God is fixed. Macbriar wrote, “Peace is the first blessing promised by Christ to the returning sinner, and it is a great one.”
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It is imperative that we understand that we cannot restore ourselves. Even if we are doing the do’s and not doing the don’ts, we are not restored until we ABCD.
Doing good works does not change our spiritual condition. We need to address being spiritually dead. Spiritual death is the separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
Bunting noted that this peace is felt because “the ground of God’s controversy with us [has been] removed …” Oh, yeah. We are still going to feel the results of sin. We no longer are under the consequences of sin.
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Holiness
Holiness is more than a character trait; it is purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being holy. Holy means to be set apart, perfect, and pure.
We are pure because the stain of sin has been taken from us. Shouldn’t that give us peace? We no longer have to pay the penalty for our sins.
Okay. I have to process what Magee said. He wrote, “On the other hand the doctrine of justification by inherent righteousness does not, and never can, give perfect peace; for it is a righteousness partly human and partly Divine, and therefore partakes of the uncertainty and imperfection of all things human.”
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Justification by righteousness. Justification is the act of God as Judge pronouncing us guiltless through the atonement of Jesus Christ, which frees us from sin. Righteousness is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments.
Okay. That means there was nothing we could ever do that would pay the penalty for our sins. It had to be a blood sacrifice, and only Jesus’ blood was perfect.
Glossary
We would never be good enough. As long as we are in these human bodies, we have the capacity to sin.
Instead, holiness is being like God. It is imitating Him.
Glossary
The Hope of the Glory of God
The glory of God is one of the things we have no point of reference to even begin to fathom how great His glory is. Glory is the expression the splendor representing the attributes of God resulting from the authority of God.
I know. The glory of God is hard to understand. Gifford described it as, “Like the righteousness, the truth and the life of God (Ephesians 4: 18), it has its hidden source in the Father, it is manifested in the Son, it is reflected in man (John 17: 22).”
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Because of the magnificence of His glory, we have the assurance that God can provide the atonement for our sins. Adams wrote, “The glory of God’s kingdom is to be ours in a sense vastly higher than anything we are said to possess in the present life.”
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This hope is to provide disciples joy. This joy should sustain us through the trials of this life and death as we transition to eternal life.
Making the Connections
Faith gives us peace and hope because it takes away the censure that we have for our sins. When we ask God to forgive us, He does.
We have to realize that God doesn’t just call us holy upon our asking Him to forgive us from our sins. This is another past, present, and future definitions of being holy.
We were not holy, so upon conversion, God changes us so that we can be holy. As we navigate the Sanctification Road, we become more holy. We will have our ups and downs until we get out new bodies and are made like Him.
Making the Connections to Self-Discipline
We’ve talked a couple of times in this devotion how we are to grow to be more like God as we navigate the Sanctification Road. We must discipline ourselves to stay on that road.
How Do We Apply This?
- We have to ABCD.
- Since this represents our greatest need, we should strive to navigate the Sanctification Road.
Our hope stems from our justification through faith. In the next devotion, we will look at how that Hope sustains us through suffering.
Father God. We are humbled that our belief in You can justify us from our sins. We are sinful, and You are holy. Yet, You forgive us of our sins when we genuinely ask. Help us as we navigate the Sanctification Road so that we become more like You. Amen.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
What do you think?
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