Romans 5:8-9: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”
For those of you who are married, remember how wonderful your honeymoon was? I hope so! You and your spouse were inseparable, passionately in love, on your best behavior. You both loved and accepted each other unconditionally, you overlooked mistakes and missteps, your perspective was positive, your future was bright!
Similarly, when I was first saved, people would say to me, “God is doing that for you because you’re still on your honeymoon with God”. What they meant is that God doesn’t expect you to do anything, He wants to give you your heart’s desire. The only problem with that thinking is that it implies that after a period of time, when the honeymoon is over, God expects you to pull your weight and work hard, no more Mr. Nice Guy. You know, I never saw that in the Bible, but I actually believed it.
This is so far from the truth, it’s not even close. In Romans 5:8, it says, “God commended His love toward us when we were yet sinners”. While we were at our worst, when we deserved nothing, God gave us everything, He gave us total salvation.
The next verse says, “Much more then”, which is a comparison to verse 8, “being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath through him”. In other words, after we’re saved, being now justified by His blood (declared righteous), we are saved from God’s wrath or anger. See! The honeymoon is NOT over, to the contrary it’s NEVER over, it’s for eternity.
When I think about my honeymoon with my wife, Natalie, I get a big smile on my face, it was awesome. Above and beyond my highest dreams. But the honeymoon didn’t end there. Because of God’s goodness and grace, our lives are more blessed and we are more in love than we’ve ever been before.
After all, God doesn’t treat us better when we first get saved and then the rest of our Christian life goes all downhill from there, struggling to make it to the end. Get that thinking out of your head! Get back to the honeymoon frame of mind. It ain’t over! In fact, it never ends, from God’s point of view…you’re still on your honeymoon!