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gate to paradise

Romans 1:17
"For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

The GRACED acrostic is a plan for your faith walk that will help you whether you are an experienced saint with many years of service or brand new and just starting out!

Go to God in prayer daily.
Read God’s Word daily.
Attend worship regularly.
Connect in a study group.
Engage in service.
Dedicate yourself to the tithe and beyond.

In addition to these six principles, Jesus gave us the Great Commission, where He commands us to make disciples of all nations. He also promises His continuous presence until the end of the world.

Yesterday, to mark the 509th anniversary of Reformation Day, we read verse 16 from Romans 1, widely considered the central theme of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans. In it he declares that he is not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

As an Augustinian monk, Martin Luther was tormented by the question “How can I get to a merciful God?” This verse, far from comforting him, only deepened his anguish. In his own words, he “hated” the phrase because it seemed to point to a God who was a relentless prosecutor.

Through years of prayer and study, Luther came to a radically different reading. He realized that “the righteousness of God” is not God’s demand on us, but a gift from God to us, what he called a “passive” or “alien” righteousness (justitia aliena). It is the righteousness of Christ, imputed to the believer through faith alone. God’s verdict is not “you are guilty” but “you are declared righteous,” not because of anything you did, but because of what Christ did.

Luther described the moment of breakthrough as feeling “altogether born again and entering paradise itself through open gates.” The verse he had hated became, in his words, “a gate to paradise.”

It is my prayer that you too, through your GRACED faith walk, will find your own verse that becomes your own “gate to paradise.”
Amen.
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