“But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!”
Romans 5:8, 9 (NIV)
Dear verse 9, where oh where have you been all of my life?
I grew up in church and I am exceedingly familiar with verse 8, but verse 9 and I are only in the beginning stages of getting to know one another.
Verse 8 tells of God’s great love for us while we were still sinners. Even when we weren’t thinking of God, He was showing how much He loved us. And 2,000 years before we were born He did the greatest thing He could do; He sent Jesus to die for us.
After we become Christians, we share God’s love with people who don’t know Him. We tell them God loves them just the way they are, no matter what they have done. All the while, we are confident in God’s love and acceptance for them, and rightly so.
I heard about Jesus when I was very young and easily received His mercy and grace; but as time passed, my mindset began to change. When I sinned after I was saved, I felt as if God was mad at me. I wondered how He could love and forgive me. I believed God loved me before I was saved, but after becoming His daughter I thought His love was dependent upon how I was behaving. There is something very wrong with this type of thinking.
Let’s look again at verse 9.
“Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Him!”
“How much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath.”
It doesn’t say, “how much less shall we be saved from God’s wrath,” as my mind had been telling me all of my life.
It doesn’t even say, “in the same way shall we be saved from God’s wrath,” which would still be good news.
But no, it says, “how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath.”
This is great news. God is not mad at me, nor is He mad at you. When Jesus died on the cross, He took God’s anger for all of us. God is not mad at us no matter what we do.
This doesn’t mean we should get crazy and live like the devil. Though God wouldn’t be mad at us, living like that would be downright miserable, messing up our lives and our relationship with the Lord.
But what a comfort to know God’s love stays the same. We couldn’t earn His love before we were saved and we still can’t earn His love after we are saved. Likewise, He wasn’t mad at us before we were saved, and He isn’t mad at us now.
We can live in God’s love, confidently knowing He is not mad at us. He just isn’t.