A verse for 7/13/12

Rom 3:22  the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction:

Rom 3:23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Rom 3:24  and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

I know that I used these verses the other day, but I think we need to think about how bankrupt we are and know that we need grace.

   Here is a story that was in the book I read:

“Sam and Pam, two friends, both arrived in the United States as immigrants from the country of Quadora. Each one wanted to buy a house, and it so happened they each found one for sale by a certain wealthy man. Both houses were priced at $100,000. Sam arrived with 500,000 quadros, the currency of Quadora, and Pam arrived with 1,000,000 quadros.

They knew quadros were not worth one dollar apiece, but they assumed they would be able to exchange the quadros for at least enough to buy a house. However, Quadora had been ravished by hyper inflation, and the quadros had been debased until it was virtually worthless. The bank would not accept their quadros in exchange for any dollars.

To compound the problem, Sam and Pam both discovered that the wealthy man from whom they hoped to buy their houses was not unknown to them. They’d each had business transaction with the man while still in Quadora, and were heavily in debt to him. Sam owed him about a million dollars, and Pam owed him $500,000. Since their quadros were worthless, neither could even begin to pay his or her debt, let alone buy a house from him.                  

Then a strange thing happened. The wealthy man---hearing Pam and Sam were now in this country and knowing they would have arrived with only their worthless quadros----sought them out. Despite the fact they were heavily in debt to him, he canceled the debt, gave them each the house they desired, completely furnished, with utilities and maintenance paid for life.

That is the picture of how God’s grace operates. The “currency” of our morality and good deeds is worthless in God’s sight. Furthermore, we all are so heavily in debt to Him because of our sin that there is no question of our even partially paying our way with God.”