Resting in and Trusting in Christ as the Path to Peace
That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, “So shall your offspring be.”
Did you notice early words in this section?
The promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring.
That means we no longer have to worry or stress about what our standing with God is. If God keeps His promise, then that promise rests on grace and is guaranteed to all of us that have the faith of Abraham.
When I first got saved in a dorm room at ISU in Terre Haute, I wondered for a few months if I did it right. Did I pray the right prayer? Did I believe the right things when I said “Jesus, I believe that you died for my sins and rose from the dead?” At Christian concerts and events, they would give an altar call or ask us all to bow our heads and close our eyes and repeat the sinners’ prayer.
That’s why we read the Bible together, right? We can easily fill Facebook and all of our conversations with why our jobs suck or what’s wrong with the politician of the week, but what if we spoke these kinds of words to each other all of the time? What if we built each other up with our words and reminded each other about Abraham’s faith. If he hoped against hope and that’s what God loved about Him, then maybe God loves us too? If Abraham just had to believe what God said in order to be made righteous, then maybe our jobs aren’t that hard.
God gives life to the dead and calls things that aren’t as though they are. We don’t have to work and slave and judge and be convinced about what is right and wrong. We can rest in a promise that Jesus has saved us and wait for the guarantee to show up. That kind of relational, loving life is what God had with mankind in the garden, and it’s what He died to restore on the Cross.