Pastor Barry's  "Chapter & Verse"  Day 274

October 1;      Romans 3:23;       120/260(III);        ‘All Have Sinned’

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

When you read the Bible, a very important thing to remember is the character of the Lord who wrote the Bible.  He is love, so we must always read the Word with that truth in mind.  What do I mean?  You could read v23 and think that the Lord is condemning you for sinning.  Religion surely uses verses like this to remind us of our failures.  I do not believe for a moment that our loving heavenly Father does that.  For example, the Lord gave us the Ten Commandments, not to keep, but to clearly show us that we cannot keep them.  Why would He do that?  To show us that we have a problem doing what is right in His eyes and we need help.  That help is our Lord Jesus Christ.  You have to know that you have a problem before you seek an answer.  Verse 23 tells us that we have a problem, we have all sinned.  Verse 24 tells us the answer.  Because the Father loves us He forgives us by His grace, His unmerited favor, through Jesus Christ.  The devil, uses religion, to deceive people, so that they believe ‘He is out to get them.’ The Lord knows we are imperfect and we sin, so He remedied that through Jesus.  Jesus never sinned, but took our sins upon Himself on the cross and gave to us the blessings He deserved.  As we realize that we are loved and our Lord does not condemn us, our desire to conduct ourselves in a manner that pleases Him grows.  He has been so good to us that we turn our back on sin.  Do we become perfect? No.  Just grateful and free.