Photo by Jack B
By Mike Chaffin
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23
Can you think of a time when someone fell short of your expectations? Maybe you hired a contractor to repair or build something and the results just didn’t measure up? Perhaps all of us can think of a time we let someone down. We either intentionally stretched our abilities past what we could do, or usually the case, unintentionally, for some reason just didn’t deliver our best work.
Even in our relationships we let people down. Maybe we were late to an appointment, forgot about an anniversary, or didn’t do something we promised. We fell short of their expectations. We find ourselves apologizing or begging forgiveness.
Seems no one is perfect, and that is what our verse is about. We have all sinned and fell short of God’s standard. God’s standard is holiness. We can’t be holy on our own merits. Sinning comes natural and we want to satisfy the flesh. We desire to wallow in sin sometimes. That is until we meet the only one who was perfect.
Jesus Christ lived a perfect life and died as a sacrifice for our sins. Our verse is only a part of the thought Paul was explaining to us. The rest of the sentence says,
24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. Romans 3:24-25
We must face the facts. We are sinners and if we haven’t accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior we are doomed to the same fate of the devil and his demons. Eternal death awaits everyone who rejects the gift of grace God bestowed on all mankind through the redemption found in Jesus.
Prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for loving me so much that you gave your life for mine. Now your righteousness is mine. It covers me. Your Holy Spirit fills me with your love and the wisdom to stop sinning. Thank you. I praise your Holy name. In Jesus’ name, amen.
* There is a website that conducted a search for Bible verses. They compiled a list of the verses in order of the magnitude of hits they got in their search. Some of these verses qualify as ‘people’s favorites’, while others might be on the list because they are some of the most important and most teachable words of God.
