Like The Stars

(Romans 4:16-25 NIV)

Right standing with God is the result of His grace alone, working through faith alone. Righteousness, right standing with God, that is His holiness covering our unrighteousness, is imparted by faith but more than that, it is imputed by faith.

The difference being that Christ righteousness is not simply given, handed over, it is woven into us.

II Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (NIV) Our text says that Abraham trusted God, had faith and it was credited, counted, or reckoned to him as righteousness. (Depending on which translation)

All of these are good translations. However, the Hebrew word in the original text is much more dynamic than any of these English translations. The Hebrew word is “Haw-Shaab” and in this context all of these translations are accurate but the word can also be used to speak of something being woven in.

Likely, to an original audience, the ancient Hebrew mind, would have not viewed this in strictly a legal sense, that righteousness was credited to Abraham because of His faith, as though God were merely a celestial bookkeeper.

Rather than being credited to His account in a surface way, it was woven into His person in a more covenantal way. Righteousness becomes part of whom and what we are according to the new birth, as faith becomes the vehicle for alteration of our entire being.

It is not only our account which receives the credit of righteousness, but our hearts which, in Christ, are made new. Praise God!

Conclusion

Presbyterian minister of the 19th century, J. R. Miller, once wrote that “We need Christ just as much in our bright, prosperous, exalted hours as in the days of darkness, adversity, and depression. We are quite in danger of thinking that religion is only for sickrooms and funerals, and for times of great sorrow and trial—a lamp to shine at night, a staff to help when the road is rough, a friendly hand to hold us up when we are stumbling. This is not true. Jesus went to the marriage-feast as well as to the home of sorrow. His religion is just as much for our hours of joy as for our days of grief. There are just as many stars in the sky at noon as at midnight, although we cannot see them in the sun’s glare. And there are just as many comforts, promises, divine encouragements, and blessings above us when we are in the noons of our human gladness and earthly success, as when we are in our nights of pain and shadow. We may not see them in the brightness about us, but they are there, and their benedictions fall upon us as perpetually, in a gentle rain of grace.” (Heartwarming Bible Illustrations, QuickVerse 2010)

God’s provision for eternity is inclusive of eternity past as He covers our sins with the blood of Christ, eternity future as He makes a home for us in the glories of Heaven, and eternity present as He beckons us to cast our cares upon His grace.

He is calling us to a life of faith, now, today! If we will but cast aside the restraints of unbelief which presently bridle our hearts; if we will but allow His radical all consuming love to unloosen the chords of disbelief which strangle our faith; precious saints of God, if we will but abandon our substitute plans in favor of His, then we would know the power of God in our present reality.