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Reflection on Rom 5:9
Post date: 2018-06-02Autor: BCP
Let us notice the words justified by His blood – i.e. the blood of Jesus. It means that we have received the righteousness of Jesus, and through His blood God no longer sees us as debtors since Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, has once and for all paid the debt for all our sins. On our part, we need to realize again and again the saving faith which presupposes that we admit our sins both before God and before ourselves, and not conceal them, and that we turn with trust to Jesus on the cross every time we say during our prayer stop: “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner!”
Word of Life – Rom 5:9 (3/6/2018 – 17/6/2018)
Post date: 2018-06-02Autor: BCP
“Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!”
God speaks to us...
Post date: 2018-05-23Autor: BCP
God speaks to us but the problem is that we are unable to hear Him. The problem is in our receiver. Our heart needs to be attuned to His voice. He wants to work through you, through your faith too. The weaker we are, the more trust we need to place in the Lord, because “when I am weak, then I am strong”. Jesus, I trust in You.
Word of Life – Gal 3:22 (20/5/2018 – 3/6/2018)
Post date: 2018-05-19Autor: BCP
“But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.”
Reflection on Gal 3:22
Post date: 2018-05-19Autor: BCP
The whole world is a prisoner of sin. In other words, the law convicts us of sin but does not deliver us from it. We are delivered through faith in Jesus Christ. So that what was promised is given to those who believe in Jesus Christ. Therefore the centre of our faith and salvation is a personal relationship to Christ. The purpose is not to observe external rites or commands and then to give Christ the second or tenth place. Christ must have the first place! And how? Through the saving faith, because our sins force us to go to the source of forgiveness, which is the cross of Jesus. So not through the observance of some rules, however good or holy, for appearances’ sake, but through repentance of sins and faith in Jesus who died on the cross for our sins.
Word of Life – Gal 3:18
Post date: 2018-05-05Autor: BCP
“For if the inheritance is of the law, it is no longer of promise; but God gave it to Abraham by promise.”
Reflection on Gal 3:18
Post date: 2018-05-05Autor: BCP
The Apostle explains that God gave the inheritance to Abraham by promise, and we receive it through faith in Christ. This faith cleanses us from sin. But the condition is to admit sin, to believe that Jesus, the Son of God, died for my sins, and to give my sins to Him. Through this faith the Holy Spirit gives us everything that Christ has done for our sake. But first of all, this faith unites us to Jesus Himself, who dwells in our hearts through faith (Eph 3:17). In the hour of death, this faith then changes into the sight of God in the light of glory.
Reflection on Gal 3:13a
Post date: 2018-04-21Autor: BCP
It is said that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. However, one supposes that the Law of Moses brings blessing rather than curse. So how are we to understand it? No person is able to fulfil all the requirements of the law. So all people are under the curse of the law. Verse 11 says: “But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for ‘the just shall live by faith’.” So justification from sin is by faith in Jesus Christ. Why? Because Jesus voluntarily took upon Himself the curse which falls on each of us for our sins to redeem us from this curse, which is the fruit of sin, and also to redeem us from eternal death caused by sin.
Word of Life – Gal 3:13a (22/4/2018 – 6/5/2018)
Post date: 2018-04-21Autor: BCP
“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.”
Reflection on 1 Cor 15:3-5
Post date: 2018-04-07Autor: BCP
In the Letter to Corinth, the Apostle Paul speaks about the resurrection from the dead. He writes: “Now I would remind you, brethren, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you.” (1Cor 15:1-2) Then the Apostle mentions that Jesus appeared to Peter and the Twelve, and he continues: “After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.”During this Eastertide, let us realize that Jesus not only died for our sins but was really raised from the dead and is with us all the days of our life!
Word of Life – 1 Cor 15:3-5 (8/4/2018 – 22/4/2018)
Post date: 2018-04-07Autor: BCP
“For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”
Word of Life – Gal 3:11 (25/3/2018 – 8/4/2018)
Post date: 2018-03-24Autor: BCP
“But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for ‘the just shall live by faith’”
Reflection on Gal 3:11
Post date: 2018-03-24Autor: BCP
It is clearly said here that no one will be justified by the law, and it is emphasized that the just shall live by faith. Let us focus again on the term ‘the just’, both from the natural point of view and from the point of view of the Scripture. The just is the one who gives everyone his due, i.e. giving God, neighbour and oneself what is due by right.
“Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you!”
Post date: 2018-03-18Autor: BCP
We can practise it until death. This is the Law and the Prophets (cf. Mat 7:12). You can write down concretely what you do not want others to do to you, and then stop and think if you do not do exactly the same to others, perhaps in a subtler form. How simple and topical for our everyday life!
Word of Life – Gal 3:8 (11/3/2018 – 25/3/2018)
Post date: 2018-03-10Autor: BCP
“And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, ‘In you all the nations shall be blessed.’”
Reflection on Gal 3:8
Post date: 2018-03-10Autor: BCP
It is said that the Scripture foresees that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. An example is Abraham himself, who was a Gentile but he believed in God, in His almightiness, acknowledged God as his sovereign Lord and surrendered his life to Him. He accepted the moral laws which God had put into the heart of man through conscience. In this respect, Abraham is an example to the Gentiles. If they have the faith of Abraham, God will justify the Gentiles.However, we have to distinguish between the Gentiles like Abraham and the Gentiles who have embraced religious systems which block them and are the greatest obstacle for the Abrahamic faith because they force the Gentiles to worship demons rather than the one Sovereign God as the Creator and Supreme Lawgiver.
Reflection on Gal 3:6-7
Post date: 2018-02-24Autor: BCP
The Apostle points to Abraham again and sets him as an example of faith. He believed God, believed in God’s almightiness, and he stood in this faith even in the face of hard trials. Faith was accounted to him for righteousness; in other words, he was justified of his sins by faith. The Apostle continues in verse 7: “Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.” The faith in one God the Creator is the foundation for justification of sins.
Word of Life – Gal 3:6-7 (25/2/2018 – 11/3/2018)
Post date: 2018-02-24Autor: BCP
“Just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.”
Word of Life – Gal 3:2-3 (11/2/2018 – 25/2/2018)
Post date: 2018-02-10Autor: BCP
This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?
Reflection on Gal 3:2-3
Post date: 2018-02-10Autor: BCP
In chapter two, the Apostle points out that we are not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Christ (v.16) and if justification came through the law, then Christ died in vain (v.21). So justification requires faith in Christ Jesus. And now the Apostle reveals that this faith in Christ is also necessary for man to receive the fullness of the Spirit of God like the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost. He makes it clear that one does not receive the Spirit of God by the works of the law but again, only and only by faith in Jesus.