Daily Devotion – March 8, 2022 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison

Romans 10:8b-13
10:8b “The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim);
10:9 because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10:10 For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.
10:11 The scripture says, “No one who believes in him will be put to shame.”
10:12 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him.
10:13 For, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Paul is as big-hearted as God in this proclamation in Romans. Paul says God is big enough to include all human beings, no matter their nationality, religion, gender, or side of any argument. “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

It bothers a friend of our family, it bothers him a great deal, that God could love a child murderer, for example, enough to save him or her. It is our friend’s stumbling block to faith. Any God who could be merciful to that kind of sinner is not a God worth worshiping, he says. I will not participate in a faith if the God they believe in can be merciful in that way.

Paul is saying here that the person who calls on the name of the Lord and believes/hopes in his/her heart that Jesus is God’s son, shall be saved. Eternally. Reconciled to God. Even forgiven. But that does not mean there are no consequences on earth to that person’s actions. You see, our friend is a lawyer, and he has given his whole working life to making sure justice is done and people reap what they sow.

We do not earn our way into God’s grace. We don’t do just enough stuff or feel just enough kindness toward one another that we deserve heaven. Not any of us. Remember Peter’s question to Jesus about how much is enough? He asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive his brother. Isn’t seven enough? Won’t that show that I am a good person and worthy of God’s love? Jesus replies, seventy times seven. In other words, really nobody is patient enough, loving enough, flawless enough to earn God’s favor.

But we don’t need to. God already favors us and has since we first opened our little infant eyes. We can do nothing to earn it, and we don’t need to, because we’ve always had it. So the awful child murderer and the person who has only forgiven his brother 15 times are both God’s beloved children, whether they like it or not. God is that generous. And Paul is not shy to proclaim it to the Romans and to us.

Lord God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us Paul’s letters, especially this letter to the Roman Christians. Help us to remember that all humans are beloved of God, no matter what gender, what faith, what nationality, and what side of any argument they might favor. We are all beloved. Amen.