Peace with God

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”  (Romans 5:1 ESV)

After spending Chapter 4 explaining that we are justified before God by our faith in His Son, not by our works of righteousness, Paul starts Chapter 5 with “THEREFORE.” Like any good Bible student, we know that whenever we see the words “Therefore,” the author is concluding an argument he has just made, thus tying Chapter 4 and Chapter 5 together. So, to truly understand his conclusion in 5:1-2 “THEREFORE having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.”, we need to be sure to read his argument in Chapter 4.  No truer words have ever been spoken than what is stated in 5:1. Once we understand that our position before God is purely because of His grace, His gift to any who will accept by faith that God’s only Son, our Lord Jesus, died to give us eternal life, is the only way we can ever “have peace with God”.

I don’t know about you, but I do know that many “believers” can’t seem to find the peace that God offers. They can’t rest in their salvation; they don’t feel comfortable in their new “spiritual skin,” so to speak. They constantly think that God is disappointed in them, that they can never do enough to please Him, and they say, “How can a holy God ever love someone like me?”  My answer is “exactly”; they are exactly right: “How could God love someone like me?” I don’t know all the richness of God’s grace; all I know is that, over and over again throughout the book of Romans and his other letters, Paul tells us that only by God’s grace can we ever be “at peace” with God.

Friend, if you are searching for peace in this world and for eternity, you can find it only in our Lord Jesus Christ. We read that Jesus said, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” God knows that you don’t deserve peace; He knows that none of us deserve it. But He loved us anyway, and demonstrated that love by sending His Son to pay for our sins. He has given all of us a gift that is ours for the taking. Accept the gift of eternal life today, find that peace that surpasses all human understanding, and accept the peace from God.

Believer, stop fighting with your new heart, the one God gave you at the moment of salvation; stop listening to the evil one and the false things you heard for so many years that you have to be good enough, because you can’t be. You can only accept God’s gift of eternal life by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9). Find the “peace with God” that Jesus paid the price to give you. Remember, Jesus did it all.

"Living in Grace is not about what I can do, but about what Jesus has already done!"