Imagine you have committed an ethical crime. You want to cover it up. You create fake identities. Aliases. You're on the run. You duck from video cameras which are everywhere. To escape attention you move around a lot. You're always looking over your shoulder.
No peace.
Then imagine, it all magically goes away. Evidence turns up that you didn't even know about. It proves your innocence, based on legal technicalities. You aren't really a lawbreaker after all. As a matter of fact, what you did helped others.
How good would that feel? No more running. Instead of a criminal, you're a hero. You can be real.
Peace.
The All Points Bulletin has been withdrawn. Your record is wiped clean. You've been given a fresh start.
Peace.
This scenario is not imaginary, but true. It's your spiritual story. We're all lawbreakers in God's book, and you're no different. Guilty. Criminal.
And we all run. Hide. Create fake identities that pretend we've got it all together, pretend we're doing okay, pretend that nothing is wrong. But it is, and that's why we're on the run.
"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1).
Evidence turns up, however. It proves your innocence, based on factual events and also the testimony of God himself. Jesus paid the sentence for your crimes and wiped them from the record permanently. Jesus entered into the legal accounting of God your purity and innocence, transferring it to your profile as a gift to you when he died in your place.
Peace. Stop running. Stop hiding. Stop pretending. You've been given a fresh start. You're not guilty after all.
Enjoy more of that freedom this weekend, and thank God for it by living as the clean record person he has saved you to be.
Peace be with you.
PRAYER: God of peace, you live and love in perfect harmony. You have no conflicts, even with me. May that peace resolve my conflicts, beginning in my own heart. Amen.
FURTHER MEDITATION: Spend some time in Romans 5:1-5. Can you put together the "peaces?" First, there is the status of peace with God in vv. 1-2. This is something to believe, and it is first. Then there is the practice, or the active principle of applying the peace of God in vv. 3-5. This is something to do. 1) Believe. 2) Do.
- Pray on this, meditating on these promises, thinking out loud with God.
- Envision what these two peaces look like in your day and weekend.
- Ask for God's blessing.
Daron Lindemann
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