The whole point of these podcasts is to help you to live in the flow of his amazing grace because that's much easier than trying to do it out of your own strength. Amen. Well, last episode we were, we were talking about how God destined us to reign in life. He created Adam and Eve and gave them dominion over the earth, which means that his will for them was that they would reign in this world as kings. But that is not what we see throughout history. You know, there's a lot of suffering. There's a lot of pain, there's a lot of sickness and lack. And many people ask the question, believers and unbelievers alike ask the question, “where is God in all of this?... if God is such a loving God, then why does he allow suffering in the world? Why didn't God create suffering?”
God is a good, loving God who doesn't want us to suffer. Suffering is not a gift from him. Pain and sickness and Lack are not gifts from him. And so why are these things in the world then? Well, let's look at it.
Romans 5:15 says, now there is no comparison between Adam's transgression. And the gracious gift we experience for the magnitude of the gift far outweighs the crime. It's true that many died because of one man's transgression. But how much greater will God's grace and his gracious gift of acceptance overflow to many because of what the one man, Jesus the Messiah did for us.
I encourage you to go look through the whole of Romans chapter five. Scripture shows us again and again that because of Adam's sin , sin and death entered into the world. Suffering, lack, sickness, depression, everything that's negative came in because of Adam and Eve's sin – because they chose to wilfully disobey God and do what they wanted instead of doing what he commanded them not to do. Scripture clearly shows us that his sin affected the entire human race.
Romans 5:12 says, for by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin. And so death passed upon all men for all have sinned.
We were born sinners because of Adam. We were born with a sinful nature. It's not that we had sinned to become sinners but it was the moment you were born we had this nature inside of us: a sin nature. So you were born, uh, into the human race as a sinner. Someone who was basically spiritually dead, okay, separated from God. That's what it's talking about. But the scripture shows us the good news and that it doesn't matter how bad Adam's sin was in Christ. We have much more in Christ than we did in Adam.
Jesus came to redeem us, to set us free from sin, to, to give us the opportunity to reign in life, reign over sickness, poverty, defeat. Yeah, he wants us to reign in life. Over temptation and sin. And this is the life that we can live as believers, look at it again. Romans chapter five, verse 15, it says, there's no comparison between Adam's transgression and the gracious gift that we experience for the magnitude of the gift far outweighs the crime.
Yes, sin is bad but Jesus paid for it in full. If sin left you a debt of 1 million rand or $1 million, Jesus didn't just come in and pay that, that million into your account. He didn’t leave “your account” on zero. He came and paid like 100 billion into your accounts! What Adam did was bad but much more the grace of God through Jesus Christ. We have much more in Christ than what we had in Adam. Yes, we were born sinners destined and doomed for defeat, but in Christ who we are destined to reign in life were set up to reign in life. Romans chapter five verse 15 says, for if by one man's offense, death reigned by one much more they which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. This is God's will for us that we would reign in life, rain over the temptations of the devil and the temptation of Sin. Reign over sickness and lack. God wants us to reign as kings because we are his children and God has set it up for us to be able to reign in this life.
It doesn't matter what you're facing right now, it doesn't matter what bondages you've got, it doesn't matter how much suffering you've experienced up until this point in your life. What I'm going to be sharing with you over the next couple of podcasts is going to help you to step into the abundant life and step into more of what Jesus has for you. You can reign in life!