Our rags to His riches
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.
(2 Corinthians 8:9 NIV)
My granddaughters love the story of Cinderella, and I love reading it to them. The rags-to-riches story of the young servant girl has inspired many movie plots and fired the imagination of children around the world.
The Bible discusses the sacrifice of Jesus in terms of a rag-to-riches story: our rags to his riches. ‘All our righteous acts are like filthy rags’, it says in Isaiah 64:6. In this, Isaiah is explaining our need for grace. There is nothing we can do to gain or maintain salvation. All the rules we follow to that end, all the good things we do in order to try to qualify for salvation, are as filthy rags.
The problem is that, as hard as we may try to change and clean ourselves up, we remain stained with sin. It is only God who can remove those stains. Through the sacrifice of Jesus, God says to us, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.” (Zechariah 3:4).
It is in Jesus that ‘we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace…’ (Ephesians 1:7).
Cling to this promise today! Because of the cross, we go from our rags to his riches.
Prayer
Loving Father, thank you for Jesus, who died for me and rose for me, and has clothed me with the riches of his righteousness. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Study by James Henderson
First published on 25 June 2019 in GCI Update Devotionals https://update.gci.org
About the writer:
James Henderson is a minister in Grace Communion International and is the Superintendent of the churches in Europe.
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