From Injustice to Justified by Grace

If you think racial, social and cultural injustice is a big deal only in the last couple of years and only in the USA, we need to have a history lesson. 

Far too many to list in this short devotional, these tensions go way back before the Pilgrims, Rwanda, Hitler, India and the Civil War. 

Every Easter, chances are good you've seen Charlton Heston play Moses in the epic film The Ten Commandments, which is the historic retelling of the Old Testament liberation of the enslaved and oppressed Israelites out of Egypt.

By the way, this movie was one of the first to be filmed in Technicolor. That's right, boys and girls, but only if you had a color TV could you enjoy this new technology! Otherwise, you could watch it in black and white.

Jumping to the the New Testament, we read the book of Romans which is a letter from the Apostle Paul, a Jewish-Roman elite and former persecutor of Christians, to the believers who met in house-churches. The early Christians were skeptical and untrusting of Paul's conversion...for good reason. This guy was a Jew who had killed Christians! Can you imagine him showing up to the secret Bible study group who met at your house?

Turns out, Paul's love for Jesus was the real deal. His loving "parentage" of the Christian church was true and thorough. He was a missionary wherever he traveled championing the Gospel and leaving no doubt. And, speaks of all mankind (no matter their race) being sinners, but "are justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." In Romans Chapter 8, Paul notes his own freedom from sin through the power of Christ and identified himself with "Christian brothers" knowing even he could be killed for this very thing.

In the first of the last nine verses of the chapter, he instills hope and belonging in the believers, "Since God is for us, who can be against us?" Talk about injustice... persecution, imprisonment and death were a daily reality to these people. He went on to deliver God's message of love and promise:

"But we have power over all these things through Jesus Who loves us so much. For I know that nothing can keep us from the love of God. Death cannot! Life cannot! Angels cannot! Leaders cannot! Any other power cannot! Hard things now or in the future cannot! The world above or the world below cannot! Any other living thing cannot keep us away from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:37-39).

It is still true, today! Anybody want to stand up and say, "Amen"?

~ "Sam"