Being Blessed

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

BEING BLESSED

Rom 4:4-8

4 Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5 However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. 6 David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: 7 "Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 8 Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him."  

NIV

Paul is continuing his argument about the righteous will live by faith, and it is faith alone in Jesus Christ that brings us this righteousness from God. We just gathered the fact that we can boast about nothing about our lives or the works that we do and, that the only one we can boast about is God. It is true that as we work for our living, doing that which is required by our employer, we are compensated with wages, they are not a gift, and we must work to receive them. But this same principle does not apply to our relationship with God. We cannot work for righteousness, or employ our skills, in order to have God obligated to pay us with righteousness. We cannot work for it, we can only trust in God who renders us innocent and all our righteousness is in Christ whom we accept as our Lord and Savior. Paul quotes David regarding the result in someone’s life who trusts in God and that faith has been reckoned to him as righteousness. David spoke of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works. The Greek word translated blessedness, and later as blessed, mainly means exceptionally well off, or very fortunate. There is no question that we are exceedingly well off because our illegality, i.e., our violation of the law or in a sense, our wickedness, as this word blessed carries that meaning, is forgiven. Our sins have been covered and they have been covered by the shed blood of Jesus. We are overwhelmed that God will never count our sins against us, he will never bring it up to us ever, because he has forgiven us and we are exceedingly well off due to his forgiveness. With people, we will never be such fortunate, as they might say they forgive us, but at some point, perhaps within weeks, or it could take years, in fact, many years, they will remind us of our past transgressions. It seems that man’s memory is far longer than God’s. People might even hold that transgression against us for a long time. Some might tell us they have to work through it before they can come to the place of forgiving us. We might have even also been guilty of that position. But  God does not have to work through it, as when we come to him, trusting in him, he forgives and does not count our sins against us. This also means that God will never bring our transgressions up to us, never remind us of our failures, our sins. There is no guilt associated with God’s forgiveness, People would inflict that guilt every time they remind us of our past mistakes, or sins, in which case we are not blessed. Therefore we conclude that if we are to even attempt to be Christ-like or reflect his likeness, we must forgive and forget, never to bring up any sin of our fellow believers, ever. Of course, within ourselves, those transgressions might linger in our memories, but that is when we remember Jesus said to forgive seven times seventy, which can apply to one singular transgression someone did. Every time we remember it, we forgive them again, and again, which includes not bringing it up to them. What we know for sure is God will always make us blessed.