The greatest lie Satan will try to convince Christians of is that their salvation rests in themselves.  This lie must be confronted with the truth of the gospel of Jesus daily if we are to continue in our faith with joy.  Every other religion will speak about what you must do to become right with God, how you must earn His favor, but as Christians we trust not in ourselves, but that our God secured salvation for us.  We do nothing to save ourselves, Jesus is our Savior.  He bore the wrath of God for our sins, He died, He conquered death and rose to sit at the right hand of God.  We are secure in Him and His love for us will never change.  That is the great message from Romans 8:31-39 today:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?  Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.  Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?  As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” (Psalm 44:22) No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Our Heavenly Father, in a fullness of love sent forth Jesus to ransom a people.  They were held in bondage to sin, and Jesus came to pay a price to bring them to God.  Here is what I want you to know – no matter how you feel that you have sinned, you have sinned infinitely worse than you can imagine.  None of us fully understands the weight and gravity of our sin against our Creator, a perfectly holy God who loves us.  Things get worse… Satan, the ruler of this world, who knows God better than you do, is constantly accusing you in front of God day and night.  (Rev 12:10)  Worse still, every accusation about your sinfulness is true.  The great news of the gospel though is that you have already been judged.  All of your sin past, present, and future was placed on Christ on the cross.  He absorbed the infinite wrath of God, the penalty your sin deserved, in your place.  So now, the accusations against you are true, but every time an accusation against you is made, literally Jesus stops the accuser and says – I paid for that.  He/She is not-guilty, the penalty has been paid, I paid it in full.  The accuser has been stopped – there is nothing left to accuse anyone of who trusts in Jesus.