FEB 26

Genesis 3:15
Memorise Romans 5:18
“…by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men…”

When Adam disobeyed God, he and the rest of the human race were plunged into sin. Death and disease affected man, animals and plants alike. Conditions on earth became hostile and difficult. In short, God created everything and made them perfect, but man sinned and His creation was cursed. God could have simply left everything as it was and not bothered to do anything. He had all of eternity to wait for everything to slowly decay and die. Instead, He had a plan from eternity past to not only redeem man from the curse of sin, which is death, but also to restore His creation to perfection.

After Adam sinned, God announced without hesitation that He would send Christ as a Saviour for sinful man to die on the cross in man’s place so that those who confessed faith in Jesus would be saved (Genesis 3:15). Afterward, He clothed both Adam and Eve with animal skins. This act required God to sacrifice the lives and shed the blood of the animals from which the skins came to cover their nakedness, just as Jesus had to be the sacrificial Lamb so that the sins of those who look to Him in faith would forever be forgiven. Man had lost his ability to be saved through works, so God, being gracious and merciful, gave the gospel to man so that sinners could be saved by simply looking to Jesus in faith without the need for any good works. This is the Covenant of Grace.

Dear Teen, it seems “counterintuitive” that a plan so simple could be effective for a problem so serious. Sometimes we try to “be good” as much as we can, so that we feel we are worth saving. This is not what the Bible teaches. We are not worth saving anyway regardless of what we do. We must first be saved through faith, only then can we please God with good works. Otherwise they are considered filthy rags.

Thought: If we could do something to become worthy of salvation, then salvation would still be of works and not of grace.
Prayer: How marvellous, Lord, is Your plan of salvation. Only You could have planned and executed it to perfection even though You did not have to.