As the Canons of Dort say, “God would have done no one an injustice” if he had left all people “in sin and under the curse” of death. For “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” says Paul in our reading for today, and in Romans 6:23 Paul adds, “For the wages of sin is death. . . .”

It’s clear, whether you’re a designer in New York, a tour boat operator in Amsterdam, a farmer in Kenya, or a factory worker in Brazil—you’re a sinner who falls short, deprived of God’s glory. We are all incapable of saving ourselves from the quagmire of sin. We are stuck in this misery and totally unable to do any good that could help us earn our way out.

Yet there’s hope. There’s more to be learned as we read God’s Word. There’s a righteousness that we can’t earn but that “is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.”

This good news is also announced in Romans 6:23, which reads in full, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” John 3:16 also declares the good news of God’s grace and mercy: “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Hear these words and let them sink in. Repeat them often. God’s gifts in Jesus give us life!