Our Constant Star: Day 20

Read & Journal

Read  Romans 5:6-11. Mull over what you’ve read: 

• What does this passage teach you about Jesus? 

• What do these verses reveal about why Jesus came to live on earth? 

• Meditate on the word “helpless.” When was a time when you felt absolutely powerless or helpless? How did God use the situation to teach you more about himself? 

• Jesus died for you before you even recognized that you were a sinner in need of salvation. Why does that matter to you? What difference does it make in your life? 

• Reread verse 11. How has your relationship with Jesus brought you joy this week? Journal your response as a prayer. 

Ponder

And we are jubilant today,

For You have washed our guilt away.

O hear the glad new song we sing

On this, the birth of Christ our King!

It’s stage 4 cancer. 

We’re sorry, but we’re letting you go. 

We’re going to have to foreclose. 

If you’re helpless, there’s nothing you can do on your own to fix the situation. Maybe it’s an unexpected diagnosis or there’s simply more month than paycheck, but either way, you’re out of options. You can’t fix it, and you can’t change it. 

Whether it brings to mind an image of being stuck on the side of the road or the end of a job you loved, there’s a reason Paul chose that word to describe us in verse 6: we all have at least some inkling of what it means to be helpless—defenseless, weak and vulnerable. And that’s what he says we were before Jesus left the Father’s throne to rescue us. 

Jesus makes our lives better, but that’s not the primary reason he needed to come to live among us. He came because we can’t save ourselves. There is absolutely nothing we can do on our own to rescue ourselves from sin. Not our good works. Not our own righteousness or goodness. Not our efforts. Not our own strength, power or popularity. Nothing. 

You and I are sinners, and there’s no way for us to dig ourselves out of the deep pit we’ve dug on our own. But the truth that we’re celebrating this Christmas is right there in today’s passage: when we were utterly helpless, Jesus, the sinless Son of God, came and died for our sins. 

And that sacrificial act had some powerful consequences. We are …

• Declared righteous: We have been “made right,” as the New Living Translation puts it, with God by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. He died, taking our punishment for sin on himself. Because he is sinless and absolutely righteous, he gives us his righteousness so we can live in relationship with the Father. 

• Saved through him from wrath: We are delivered from the power and dominion of sin in our daily lives, meaning where once we had no power to refrain from sin, now we have the power of the Holy Spirit to withstand temptation and sin. We are also saved from the condemnation and wrath reserved for those who do not accept God’s only means of salvation, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. 
  

• Reconciled with the Father: As the hymnist put it, Jesus left the Father’s throne “his banished children to reclaim.” Jesus makes it possible for those who believe to “receive forgiveness for their sins and enter into an eternal relationship of joy with God the Father” (Mounce). 

Because of what Jesus has done, we can rejoice. May his praise be ever on your lips and in your heart this Christmas season! 

Source: Robert H. Mounce, Romans, vol. 27, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1995), 138.