Stephen Kuhn

You have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15).

I may be sacrificing any semblance of credibility for admitting this, but I absolutely love the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yes, it’s ridiculous; and yes, it’s not exactly the best theological commentary; but every time I watch it I find myself laughing hysterically (and slightly ashamed at my ability to quote every line).

One scene I particularly enjoy is when God sticks His head through the clouds and speaks directly to King Arthur. God is all business, and He appears to have become quite frustrated and impatient with humanity. At one point, He goes off on a tirade about how annoying His subjects are: “If it’s one thing I can’t stand, its people groveling. Every time I try to talk to someone it’s ‘sorry this’ and ‘forgive me that’ and ‘I’m not worthy…’”

What stands out to me about this scene though, is how the film-makers, in their attempt to create something humorous, have actually provided a sobering commentary on how many people truly do view God.

A lot of folks, when they think of God, see Him as a harsh cosmic judge or task-master. They see a man with a long beard and glowing crown (not unlike the picture of God in the movie), sitting on a throne bossing people around: “Do this, do that, follow the rules, and don’t even think about doing anything fun or I shall smite thee!”

But that’s the not the picture of God we’re given in the Bible. In fact, Romans 8:15 says exactly the opposite.

Paul tells us in this verse that those who are in Christ don’t need to fear God as a slave owner. The image of a cruel, impatient, and demanding God poking His head through the clouds to give us His marching orders is simply not true.

God doesn’t see you as His slave; He sees you as His beloved child. He has adopted you into His family because He loves you with the perfect love of a sinless Father. This unconditional love is what allows us to respond to Him as our “Abba (Daddy),” and come to Him to be fathered rather than judged or condemned.

Imagine if King Arthur had addressed the movie version of God as “Daddy.” I doubt He would have received a warm embrace. But that’s the danger that comes with misunderstanding God’s true nature: As long as you fear God’s judgement, wrath, or condemnation as a slave-driver, you will be more likely to grovel before Him than to run to Him for help whenever you fall.

But now that your union with Christ has made you a permanent member of God’s family, there’s no need to grovel. You can run straight to your Abba Father with confidence that He will embrace you no matter what.

This post is an excerpt from my new book, 52 Amazing Things That Became True of You the Moment You Trusted Christ. If you enjoyed what you read here, be sure to check out the book for 51 more awesome truths about how God sees you!

 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).

If you’ve been around the church for a while you’ve probably heard this verse a hundred times. But have you ever thought about what it actually means, particularly what it means for you?

For example, have you considered what percentage of your sin was paid for by Jesus at the Cross? Was it 20%? 50%?

According to the Bible, it was 100%. All your sin was paid for at the cross.

Or what about this question: How much of your sin has been committed after Jesus paid for it on the cross?

Unless you’re more than 2000 years old, all of your sin has been committed after the cross.

It’s probably easy for you to understand that every sinful thing you’ve ever done was paid for by Jesus, but do you realize that every sinful thing you still have yet to do has already been paid for as well?

That’s a difficult concept for our time-conscious minds to grasp.

Not for Jesus though. When He died as the perfect sacrifice two thousand years ago, He knew the entire list of sins you would commit over the course of your life (even those you will commit ten, twenty, or thirty years from now), and His death covered every last one of them.

All the sins (past, present, and future) of all believers (past, present, and future) were paid for by His death.

It’s this complete payment of all sin for all eternity that allowed Jesus to proclaim “It is finished!”

No more guilt.

No more punishment.

No more condemnation.

None.

No matter how much you’ve sinned (or will sin), if your faith is in Christ, it’s already been made right. No further justice or retribution will ever be required.

So from now on, when you sin, don’t beat yourself up and feel as if your sin is causing God to see you as unacceptable. I would encourage you instead to come before God with thankfulness:

• Thank Him that Jesus already paid for the sin you just committed.
• Thank Him that He loves and accepts you unconditionally in spite of the sin you still commit.
• Thank Him that He only sees the righteousness of Christ in you no matter how many times you still mess up.

Odds are good we all will continue to wrestle with sin in the years to come. But thanks to Jesus bending time and space to pay for our future sins with His past sacrifice, we can now run to God rather than fearing His condemnation.

Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith, we have peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us (Romans 5:1).

When the Apostle Paul penned this verse, he had just finished writing an entire chapter explaining how Abraham was saved by his faith, not by his good deeds.

This must have been quite shocking to the original recipients of the letter, being that many of the Christians in Rome had grown up in the Jewish tradition. They saw Abraham as the father of their religion, which was based heavily upon following the law (good deeds) to maintain a right standing with God.

But now Paul is telling them it wasn’t actually Abraham’s ability to follow the law that saved him—it was his faith. Abraham trusted God, and that’s the only reason God counted Him as righteous.

Paul may as well have said up was down and down was up.

He could have stopped there, leaving Romans 4 as an interesting biographical lesson on the life of Abraham, but thankfully Paul continued on to write the verse we’re looking at today (and likely stunning his readers even more).

Paul wanted to make sure his readers knew that all these things he just told them about Abraham are also true for everyone who’s faith has been placed in Christ.

That includes you and me today.

In the same way Abraham’s deeds had nothing to do with his righteousness, your deeds have no bearing on your righteousness either. Simply put, you can’t earn God’s acceptance through behavior.

At first glance, the idea that you could never do enough good to earn God’s acceptance sounds likes bad news, but actually it’s wonderful news.

Think of it this way. If God’s acceptance depended on your good works, how much good would you have to do to know that you’d earned it? At a minimum, you would need to do enough to compensate for your mistakes, right? And then, every time you messed up, you would have to do more good deeds to get back to baseline.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds exhausting. Plus, you would never know for sure whether you were doing enough, so you would always doubt God’s acceptance of you.

But look once again at what Paul tells us in this verse. He makes it clear that we have been made right with God by faith.

“Have been…” Past tense. It’s a done deal.

Your righteousness had nothing to do with your good works when God gave it to you (through Christ), and it still doesn’t today.

By trusting that you have already been made right with God, it will free you from the endless treadmill of trying to earn your own righteousness.

And that, my friend, will lead you to tremendous peace.