Romans 4:23-25 - Daily Devotion - 30 June 2026

St Barnabas Anglican Church Fairfield & Bossley Park

23 Now the words “it was credited to him” were written not only for Abraham, 24 but also for us, to whom righteousness will be credited—for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our trespasses and was raised to life for our justification.

REFLECTIONS

Written by Rebecca Shead

In this life, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”. In general if you want something, you have to work for it. Do you want to be good at sport? You have to train a lot. Do you want to save up to buy something? You need to get a job and save your money. Do you want good marks? You have to study hard. Do you want that promotion? You have to put in extra hours and show your commitment to the company. We learn from when we’re very young, that reward requires effort.

And so it’s not surprising that we think the same applies with God. We want something from him (to go to heaven and not face his judgment) so we try really hard to be good and impress him with our efforts. I often find myself thinking this way, even though I know that salvation is by grace alone! It’s hard to change old ways of thinking.

These verses have very good news for us – God will credit righteousness to us if we “believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (v24). God doesn’t measure our goodness by our actions, but instead he looks at our hearts to see if we are trusting in the death of Jesus on our behalf. If we trust him, that is good enough for God because he credits us with Jesus’ perfection. It’s like we do get a “free lunch”! Although, of course, it wasn’t free – Jesus paid the highest price when he died in our place to take the punishment for our sin.

These verses remind me that God never changes. From the time of Abraham all the way to Paul’s words in Romans, and to us today, the way God works is by crediting righteousness to those who believe. It has never been about (impossible) perfect obedience or earning our way to heaven. Instead, it’s all about trusting God’s promises and depending on him. Let’s pray with thankfulness to our Father for Jesus’ death and resurrection which brings us salvation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rebecca is a member of our Bossley Park Morning congregation.