Accessibility

Did you know that God is accessible? He has made Himself available to all. He has reached out and declared peace to all humankind. The door is open to those who believe.

The notion that God is remote and inaccessible is made void by scripture, which is His true message to the whole world. In His reaching out He has said that we can take hold of His outstretched arms and be welcomed into His family.

Yes, that’s right, His family. We don’t come in as servants but as sons and daughters (Gal.4:6-7). We will want to serve His cause, of course, and will allow ourselves to serve His purposes, but as His kin, and as heirs, joint heirs with Jesus Christ (Rom.8:16-17). Think about this.

Justified

Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5:1-2

Several things here. First, we are justified through faith. How does this come about? We hear the gospel preached, that Jesus has been sent to pay the price of our sin and that we can receive Him as Lord and Saviour, which also means, as we confess Him as Lord, we are born again, born of the Spirit of God.

Being justified means we are made righteous–right in the sight of God. In right standing with Him. Given a clean slate. Old things have passed away and all things are made new. We become new creatures in Christ (2Co.5:17).

Second, we are given peace with God. Oh, this is such a precious place to be. If we are at peace with Him through faith, we can know that He was at peace with us before we accepted His peace. He is the Supreme Peacemaker.

Ours is the response to His peace offered. Not the peace of the world, but His divine peace that is beyond our understanding (Phil.4:6-7)(Jn.14:27).

Third, we have access by faith into His grace–the grace by which we now stand–and we can come boldly to the throne of grace for help in time of need (Heb.4:16). This also means that God is welcoming to us, as we said at the beginning of this article. He has made Himself approachable to us. We have been drawn to Him by His goodness towards us (Rom.2:4).

No-one comes the Father God unless He first draws them to Jesus (Jn.6:44). We were drawn through the preached gospel–the message of hope first declared by Jesus, the good news, pronounced in turn by the Apostles and then on through the ages by the Church of the Living God–that message being still on our lips and, now, our responsibility.

Access

The favourable news here is that we have entry to God through faith. You see how important, again, is faith to our cause. Everything is by faith (Rom.1:17). We have access because of His grace, and also because we have faith. All is by grace through faith (Ep.2:8-9).

Finally, for this session, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. He is undoubtedly for us, regardless of who we are and what we’ve done before we encounter His grace, especially when our response to His offer of sanctification is received and acted upon. Hope is the fervent expectation of good. Our expectation is in His glory.

There is more to this passage of scripture in Romans 5, because our faith will be challenged, as is its nature. Faith is honed on pressure, just as a sailing ship is manoeuvred through the power of the wind and the stretching of the canvas.

Faith is purified under testing. It’s like gold in a crucible, losing all its dross under the fiery heat of the furnace (1Pe.1:6-8). For this reason we should rejoice when trials come our way because they are evidence that we have faith enough to quell their assault and overcome (Jam.1:2-4).

For now we can celebrate the good news that God has made the way to His throne accessible at all times and we are accepted in the Beloved (Ep.1:6). Acceptance is access. We are free to approach Him, any time.