DAILY DEVOTIONAL – September 9, 2019
“Life in the Wreckage”
Prayer: God, You are 100% faithful to Your promise even when we fail and sin and prove unfaithful. Thank You Lord for Your faithfulness, even to the point of death on a cross, so that our faithlessness could be forgiven. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Scripture: Romans 8:1-4
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled.”
Devotion – “The Fine Print”
When my wife and I bought our first home, there were so many things that were new and so much we didn’t know about home ownership. As any of you know that have owned a home, there are many rude awakenings when you go from enjoying the convenience of a landlord to all of a sudden being a homeowner yourself for the first time.
The moment I first realized the full scope of the commitment my wife and I had made was when we sat down to finalize the paperwork and sign all the documents. I knew there would be a lot to go through and sign, but I was not prepared for the onslaught that was soon to begin. The packet that we had to sit down and go through with our real estate agent had to be no less than 2-3 inches thick. Seeing the wide-eyed look on my face, my real estate agent said, “Don’t worry it’s not as bad as it looks.” Of course, that was easy for him to say, he only had to sign one or two documents.
I have to make a confession, I probably only actually read 10-15 pages worth of the endless fine print contained in the hundreds of pages of contracts. Think about all of the things that we sign. All the official agreements we make especially online; all of the terms and conditions we agree to with a simple click. I must admit I don’t read enough of them. How about you? Well, if some recent studies released by the Washington Post are correct, chances are you’re no better at faithfully reading through all the fine print than I am.
The WASHINGTON POST recently reported on an experiment sponsored by the security firm F-Secure. They set up an open Wi-Fi network in a busy public area. When people connected, they were presented with lengthy terms and conditions.
But to see just how little attention we pay when checking that agreement box, F-Secure included a what is called a “Herod – clause”; it’s a clause that offers up free Wi-Fi in exchange for the company’s permanent ownership of the user’s firstborn child.
In reality, any company would have more than just a little trouble getting you to hand over your pride and joy (even if you were technically contractually obligated), so don’t panic. But it did prove how little we read of the terms and conditions we sign so often. 58% percent of adults in the experiment said that they would rather read an instruction manual than go through online terms and conditions. 12% of the people surveyed said they would even rather read through a phone book than read the lengthy terms and conditions hidden behind the many online agreements they had made.
This new study isn’t the first of its kind either. On April Fool’s Day in 2010, a host of U.K. shoppers were signed away their souls to another company who also ran a similar experiment.
The term Testament as in Old and New Testament or Old and New Covenant could be properly understood in our modern English as the Old and New “Contract”. However, a proper understanding and study of the actual covenant that God gave to man, both the Old Covenant and the New, reveals that all of the fine print was about what God was agreeing to, and what He was promising to do by the authority of His own Name. In fact, the Old Covenant and New Covenant that God has established and given have nowhere for us to sign. It is a completely one-sided agreement on God’s part.
God promised since Adam and Eve’s first sin that He would take responsibility for our debt of sin…that He would send a seed of a woman, His Son Jesus born of the Virgin Mary…and that He Himself would uphold the Law of God that we broke. And that is exactly what Jesus did. Jesus signed His name in our place with His own blood. Though you and I have sinned against God, broken our promises to Him and have proven unfaithful to Him, God always has and always will be faithful to His Promise and the contract He signed in His own blood. With that contract, Christ paid our debt and purchased the eternal life and salvation we could never afford.
The only agreement we have to make, is to agree to receive God’s free gift in Jesus; and we receive that gift by believing Jesus is the Son of God who died for sins. We receive that gift by thanking Him and worshiping Him and trusting Him. The Law of God with all of its legal demands has been fulfilled on our behalf in Christ’s blood. As Paul said in our text from Romans 8:1-4, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled.”
For any person to be saved, we must come to God on His terms and on His conditions. The Good News of the Gospel my friends, is that because of Christ’s sacrifice to pay our debts, God’s only condition is to believe, to put our faith and hope in Christ alone, and receive God’s free gift of love and forgiveness in His Son Jesus.
God bless you my friends, and remember that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
