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Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.
Romans 3:27-28

No Boasting Allowed

We live in a world that continually encourages boasting. From polished resumes to carefully curated social media feeds, we are conditioned to present our best selves, tally our achievements, and prove our worth. Tragically, we often bring this same self-justifying mindset into our relationship with God. Our fallen nature desperately wants to point to our good deeds, our faithful worship, or our moral track record and say, “Look at what I have done, Lord.”

But the apostle Paul firmly shuts the door on our pride: “It is excluded.”

If our standing before God were based on “the law that requires works”—our personal ability to keep God’s commandments perfectly—we might have a reason to brag. But the harsh, condemning reality is that we all fall completely short. Our spiritual resumes are filled with failure. We have absolutely nothing of our own to offer a holy God.

But thanks be to God, our salvation doesn’t depend on our performance. Paul declares the central, beautiful truth of the Christian faith: “a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” We are declared innocent, not guilty, entirely because of Jesus Christ.

As both true God and true man, Jesus lived the flawless life the law demanded, and he suffered the bitter penalty our sins deserved on the cross. He accomplished that work as our perfect substitute. Faith is simply the empty hand that receives this incredible gift of God’s undeserved mercy.

Since our salvation is entirely the work of God, we can never boast about our own abilities. We can’t contribute anything to the work Jesus has done for us, because it’s already finished. But that’s not bad news; it’s the ultimate comfort. When our conscience accuses us, we don’t have to look to our own broken selves. We look to Christ alone. We can’t boast in ourselves, but we will boast eternally in the cross of our Savior.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, strip away my pride and my attempts to earn your favor, and lead me to trust in your freely given grace alone. Let my only boast be in you forever. Amen.

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:25-26

No Sweeping Allowed

When you are expecting company and short on time, it’s tempting to sweep the dirt on the floor under the rug. Out of sight, out of mind. Sometimes we wish God would treat our sins the same way. We hope that because God is loving and merciful, he might look the other way, ignore our daily failures, and sweep our guilt under the rug of eternity.

But a truly just judge can’t simply ignore a crime. If a human judge let a guilty criminal walk free just to be “nice,” we would call that judge corrupt. If God swept the world’s sins aside without a second thought, he would cease to be righteous. The crushing reality of God’s law is that every sin creates a debt, and the wage of sin is death.

Our debt can’t be casually hidden; it must be dealt with. God’s justice doesn’t allow sin to be ignored. That’s why he did something far more profound and far more costly: he presented Jesus Christ as a “sacrifice of atonement.” Rather than ignoring the mountain of the world’s sin, God the Father took every single one of them and laid them squarely on the shoulders of his perfect Son. In Jesus, the unyielding demands of God’s perfect justice were met, not by lowering the standard, but through his perfect life of obedience and death on a cross.

There at the cross, God demonstrated that he is both “just” and the one who “justifies.” He is just because the full penalty of sin has been paid by Jesus’ perfect sacrifice. And he is your justifier because through faith, Christ’s perfect payment is freely transferred to your account.

Your sins have not been swept under the rug. They have been washed away by the blood of the Lamb. Your debt is not ignored; it has been paid in full. Your forgiveness is complete.

Prayer:

Jesus, thank you for paying the debt of my sin once and for all. Amen.

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
Romans 3:22-24

In the Same Boat

Human nature loves hierarchy. We naturally take comfort in measuring ourselves against the people around us. We might admit that we aren’t perfect, but we quietly reassure ourselves that at least we aren’t as bad as “those other people.” We build moral and social ladders, hoping our good deeds, faithful church attendance, or respectable lives will elevate us a few rungs higher than the rest of the world.

But in Romans chapter 3, the apostle Paul takes an axe to our self-righteous distinctions. “There is no difference,” he writes. When it comes to our standing before the holy law of God, the ground is completely level. All have sinned. All fall short of God’s glory. We are all languishing in the same sinking boat. Whether you are a lifelong believer or someone who has spent a lifetime running from God, the diagnosis of his holy law remains identical: guilty. And the same sentence looms: death.

If Paul stopped there, we would be left helpless. But he immediately follows the terrifying equality of the law with the breathtaking equality of the gospel: “and all are justified (declared innocent) freely by his grace.”

Notice how God rescues us. We are not saved by how hard we try to bail water out of our sinking boat. We’re justified freely. It is a pure gift, entirely unearned and unmerited.

And while it’s free to us, this gift was incredibly costly to him. It comes “through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” Jesus willingly stepped into our sinking boat, took the floodwaters of God’s wrath upon himself on the cross, and pulled us safely to the eternal shore of his resurrection.

Because of Christ, the debt of your sin is paid. You don’t need to compare yourself to others to find peace. Your standing before God doesn’t depend on your performance; it depends entirely on Christ’s blood and righteousness, given to you freely by grace.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, strip away my pride and my desire to justify myself. When my conscience accuses me, comfort me with the sure promise that my sins are forgiven freely through your redeeming blood. Amen.

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
Romans 3:21-22

Given, Not Gained

We are wired to earn our keep. From the classroom to the workplace, the world operates with a simple, unbreakable rule: you get what you earn. And our fallen flesh assumes God’s kingdom must work the same way. We look at God’s holy law and view it as a ladder we must climb to achieve his favor. We think we can gain his favor through better behavior, deeper sincerity, or more fervent promises to “do better next time.”

But the law was never meant to be a ladder; it’s a mirror. It reflects our profound inability to be holy, showing us that our best efforts are stained with sin. If our standing before God relied on what we can gain through our own obedience, we would be utterly lost.

But then Saint Paul was inspired to write two wonderful words, “But now,” which announce a radical shift. A righteousness (perfection) from God has been revealed entirely apart from our law-keeping. It’s not a wage gained by our work; it’s a freely given reward to the spiritually bankrupt. This was always God’s plan, proclaimed throughout the Old Testament. God demands absolute perfection from us. And then, through his Son, Jesus Christ, he gives us exactly what he demands.

Jesus lived the spotless life you could not live, fulfilling God’s law in your place. He suffered the penalty for your failures on the cross. His perfect record has been transferred to your account. Notice the crucial verb in Paul’s explanation: this righteousness is given. You can’t gain what you’ve already been given through faith in Jesus.

Understand: faith isn’t your contribution to salvation. It isn’t a good work that tips the scales in your favor. It’s simply the empty hand of a beggar receiving a gift purchased with Jesus’ blood. You don’t have to gain God’s love today or ever. In Jesus, it’s already been given.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, thank you for fulfilling the law in my place. When I am tempted to rely on my own works, quiet my proud heart and point me to you. Grant me the confidence of knowing that your perfection is fully given to me. Amen.

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.
Romans 3:19-20

We’ve Had a Problem

On April 13, 1970, an oxygen tank exploded aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft. Drifting into the dark vacuum of space, the crew faced a catastrophic systems failure. Their oxygen was escaping into space, and their power was rapidly draining. The radio crackled with a now-historic phrase: “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”

Those astronauts couldn’t save themselves. They couldn’t step out and piece the spacecraft back together. If they had been forced to rely on their own resources, they would have been doomed.

The apostle Paul issues a similar, terrifying diagnostic report for you and me. By nature, we like to think we can navigate our own way to heaven. We assume the law—God’s holy commandments—is a step-by-step flight manual to manage a safe landing there.

But Paul shatters that illusion. God’s law was not intended to save sinners. It was given so that “every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.” It’s a master warning alarm flashing aggressively on our spiritual control panel. It can’t fix our broken condition; it simply tells us there’s a problem. “Through the law we become conscious of our sin.”

When we honestly measure ourselves against God’s holy demands, our self-righteous defenses crumble. Our mouths shut. We realize our spiritual oxygen is completely depleted. We have a problem. We can’t fix it.

But our rescue doesn’t depend on us. Just as the Apollo Crew had to rely entirely on Mission Control to get them home, we rely entirely on God’s rescue mission in Jesus. Our Savior stepped into our doomed vessel, lived perfectly under God’s law in our place, suffered the fatal consequences of our sin on the cross, and rose victorious to bring us safely home. God’s law only diagnoses and condemns; Jesus gives life.

When the law silences your excuses, don’t despair. Look to Jesus. The problem is fatal, but your Savior has already rescued you.

Prayer:

Jesus, help me see how helpless I am, and empower me to cling to you now and forever. Amen.

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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[Jesus said] I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
Matthew 10:16

Being Sheep Among Wolves

Sheep among wolves are vulnerable, and they must depend on the protection of the shepherd. The Lord says, “As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep” (Ezekiel 34:12). We live each day trusting that Jesus, our ever-present and almighty God will safely lead us and completely provide for us.

But this dependence on the Shepherd is not the only way God wants us to live as his followers. Jesus urged the disciples to be cunning, resourceful, and use every gift they had at their disposal. Human reason, for example, is a useful tool God has given us, but we must remember that reason is only a tool and does not supplant faith in God’s revealed truth in the Bible.

Jesus also urges his disciples to be “innocent as doves.” “Innocent” is the same word used in Romans 16:19 “be innocent about what is evil,” and Philippians 2:15 “so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God.” We are not to be mixed with sin. But with the help of the Holy Spirit, we strive to lead lives that are blameless and pure in the eyes of God.

That’s a lot to live up to: have a pure life, be cunning and shrewd about the world and about spreading the gospel, yet be sheep among wolves. How can we do it? Never perfectly, that’s for certain. Which is why we needed Jesus to rescue us from those times when we have not lived up to God’s perfect standard. Thankfully, Jesus has done just that. And now, with the help of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus sends into our hearts, we are enabled to daily put to death the sinful nature with which we were born, and to be “eager to do what is good” (Titus 2:14).

Prayer:

Thank you, Jesus, for protecting me from the spiritual wolves that surround me. Amen.

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him. When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and bore our diseases.”
Matthew 8:14-17

Jesus’ Compassion

Jesus tenderly showed his compassion to Peter’s mother-in-law, at the same time displaying his power as God. It’s true that sometimes a fever will quickly break when someone is ill. Even then, the person needs time to recover and regain strength. However, we read in this account that the woman got up when the fever left her at the touch of Jesus’ hand, and she waited on him. Jesus performed a miracle.

As a result, there were many people with sickness and demon-possession who came to Jesus on that same day. Jesus did not refuse any of them; he healed them all. He demonstrated his tender mercy and displayed his almighty power.

Jesus’ care for people’s illnesses and miraculous activity to alleviate their suffering was proof that he was the Savior promised by God’s prophets in the Old Testament. Isaiah had written about him: “He took up our pain and bore our suffering” (Isaiah 53:4). There is nothing we know, nothing we are terrorized by or burdened with, that Jesus does not know about. We always have the comfort of his presence and confidence in his power to come to our aid.

As marvelous as this is, even better is the knowledge that Jesus took up our pain and bore the suffering our sins deserved. He is the promised Savior. So, no matter what you may be suffering physically or emotionally today, rest in the comfort of knowing your Savior has made you safe spiritually.

Prayer:

When I hurt, Lord Jesus, comfort me with your presence and help me by the power of your word and the promise of the heaven you won for me. Amen.

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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[Jesus said] “Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he said to them, “So give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
Matthew 22:19-21

Whose Image Is on You?

Some questions have no safe answer. Who did you vote for? Do you like my cooking? How does this dress make me look?

Jesus once got a question like that. His opponents asked whether it was right to pay taxes to the Roman emperor. Either answer could get him in trouble. So Jesus asked for a coin.

“Whose image is this?” he asked. “Caesar’s,” they replied. The coin carried the emperor’s face, so it belonged to him. Give it to him.

Although you are, obviously, not a coin, you are stamped with someone’s image. The Bible says that God made you. You are stamped with his image. That means you belong to him.

Sin has damaged that image. None of us has lived the way God demands. So Jesus came to buy you back. He lived the perfect life you could not, then died on a cross as your ransom, the price paid to set a prisoner free. Because he rose again, you can be sure it worked.

Here is one question that does have a safe answer: How do I look to God? Forgiven, loved, and his own.

Knowing this, live your life for him. Worship him. Love the people he brings into your life. Serve those around you. You are his. Give yourself fully to his service. Give to God what is God’s.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, thank you for buying me back and making me your own. I belong to you. Help me live today as someone fully yours and serve the people around me. Amen.

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. . . “Is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar or not?” But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, “You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me?”
Matthew 22:15,16,18

Nobody’s Mascot

The whole family is together for the holidays. The food is hot. The kids are laughing. The conversation is flowing, until Uncle Dan mentions the recent elections. Everything stops. Everyone studies their plate. Chairs scrape the floor as people shift in their seats. Grandma suddenly remembers something in the kitchen. No one says a word until someone asks brightly, “How about this weather?” Talking politics can be uncomfortable.

Jesus once faced a political question intended to do more than make him uncomfortable. He was asked whether it was right to pay taxes to the Roman emperor. Would Jesus side with Rome or with his own people? Those asking the question were trying to trap him, to get him to say something that would be unpopular and bring down his ministry.

Jesus did not fall for it. He knew what they were doing.

People still try to pin Jesus to one political side or the other. But Jesus is nobody’s mascot.

Jesus did not come to be a political leader or cheerleader. He came to save the entire human race. But when Jesus refused to pick a side, people from every side wanted him gone. Religious leaders. Political leaders. Even the disciple Judas, whom Jesus called “friend,” turned on him.

Yet, Jesus went to the cross for the people who tried to trap him. Yes, he went to the cross for the people who agree with you politically and for the people who do not. His death paid for your sins and theirs.

Jesus is nobody’s mascot and everybody’s Savior. So regardless of what party is in power or who wins the election, your hope remains secure with him. Your standing with God can’t be voted out.

Prayer:

Lord Jesus, thank you for coming to do more than lead a political movement. Thank you for coming to save my soul. Amen.

Daily Devotions is brought to you by WELS.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.