Romans 5:12-21

Have you ever wished that you had the opportunity to do anything - that everything you saw as inadequate in yourself was no longer there - everything you struggled with - that you know prevents you from being what you hoped to be - is gone. Imagine everything you've ever done that has hurt people; that has caused damage to others and yourself - is gone - made right. All those times you wanted to say the right thing, be supportive and encouraging, but you chose to be cynical and discouraging - gone!

How can this happen? All the self help books say you can do this yourself and in trying many of these you're not any farther ahead. The conclusion is you can't do this. You need help from someone. Whatever went wrong in you is so much a part of you now that it is impossible to root it out on your own. It's a deadly disease that you can't stop. You need help from the outside.

The powerful message in this passage of Romans is that someone has done this for you. In fact so powerful was their work on your behalf that it has gone into the core of your being and fixed what was broken. Much like a software program that is corrupted, another program has eliminated the corruption.

"Adam's one sin brought condemnation upon everyone, but Christ's one act of righteousness makes all people right in God's sight and gives them life. Because one person disobeyed God, many people became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many people will be made right in God's sight." vv.18-19

In this sense, Jesus has done something to us. His work has struck the very core of every human being that has ever existed, exists now and will exist in the future. There is a definite sense in this chapter concerning how much more what Jesus has done affects us as we go on living in this world. In a world where there is the most remote chance that someone might do something "for" you, God Himself has taken steps to do something "to" you.

Paul again reinforces for the Roman believers how much this transformation of life that comes from believing and receiving Christ happens to us from the outside. We've had no hand in achieving it. It was virtually impossible. Only God could do this. This enforces for us today that we need to stop trying to clean ourselves up. Rooting out sin from our lives is like trying to operate on ourselves. It just doesn't happen. It's impossible. Sin has been rooted out for us.


Ask yourself these questions as you go about your week:


1. Do you still suffer anxiety over trying to be good enough?

2. What is a necessary step you need to take to accept what Jesus has done to you?

3. Are the people around me aware that God has relieved them of the anxiety of cleaning up their own life by having cleaned it up for them in Jesus?

4. How can we share with other people this great news in language and ways that they can understand?