Justification of Life

By Odon Bulamba (14 February 2003)

Romans 5:18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. {by the offence...: or, by one offence} {by the righteousness...: or, by one righteousness}

We are going to talk about Justification of life. When we talk about Justification it means “we accept to pay a price”. One day our faith will come before God to pay or justify before Him who we were on this earth. Our lives will tell God that Angela was this and Peter was like that. The life we live on this earth doesn’t belong to us and everything we do will one day come before God. You might think that you did something in secret and nobody saw you, but one day these actions will be seen by everyone, and everybody will know that Sylvie did this and Peter done that.

There was a man, who lived on beans, imagine eating beans everyday for a couple of years. If someone invited you to eat with them and they cooked beans for you, do you think you’ll eat with a good attitude? In Justification of life we have two things, first it is the body and secondly it is our soul. The body we have is our second accuser after the devil, because it is only the body that can push you to sin. If you want to steal, your body will help you to think about it, if you want to abuse someone your body will help you carry it out, so when your body makes mistakes your soul suffers, and when your soul suffers the body will do nothing to comfort it. Sometimes you may regret it but you cannot do anything about it.

God created us in His image and He wanted us to be called human beings. In the book of Luke 15 there is a boy called the prodigal son, and this boy chose to leave his family. Before leaving his family he asked his father to give him his share, but what share did he have because the boy had never bought anything, only his father? Children always say that they can inherit what there father has, if your father is rich then you’ll be rich and if he is poor then you’ll be poor. Anyway this boy spent all his inheritance and ended up working for money feeding pigs, imagine! Because God created us in His image we as human beings think it is our right to ask Him to give our share.

If you were created beautiful, do you think it belongs to you? Just because you were created beautiful doesn’t mean you can abuse those who are ugly, just because God gave you good health it doesn’t mean to distance yourself from the sick. All what God has given you is compared to what this dad gave his son in Luke 15. The son didn’t keep what his father gave him but sold all the goods for money.

God gives us many things but unfortunately we, as Christians want to sell it. When you were born you weren’t a liar but when you grew up you sold what kept you from being a liar into a liar. When you were born murder didn’t even enter your mind, but as you grew up you sold this attitude. This is how we sell the good God gives us to find success in this world. A good example of this is terrorist groups; they are proud to called terrorist, so they too sold the good in them for success.

In Christian life today Christians also sell what God gives them. The Bible says don’t lie, but they lie, the Bible says don’t slander, yet they slander. You will see that what God gives us as Christians is rejected, to the point where our actions become very sick. We leave the country where God wants us and this country is the Word of God, which is called “eternity everyday”.

When we leave God’s country, we leave eternity that is the fruits of the Holy Spirit and the good deeds that God wants us to do. If you slander someone and your friend encourages you then both of you together make a country. When you live with a sinner or a Christian who encourages you to do wrong, you will start losing the power of the Holy Spirit in your life.

When you first became a Christian, how many times did you pray a day? When you were saved, how many times did you want to read the Bible and go to church? Where are you up to now? We lose God’s power when we lose our good deeds and become dry spiritually. The place where the prodigal son lived was dry and going through a famine, so he asked himself, what shall I do? He went to find a job. When you put God’s name aside many Christians try to run away from Him and this is what the prodigal’s son did.

Brothers and sisters, when you talk to Christians about the truth they are not happy and they don’t like to be corrected. We must keep the good deeds God gives us. So this son got a job feeding pigs, however, his intentions were not to make money but to feed off the scraps the pigs ate. This boy’s actions worked before his conscience and eventually he thought, ‘what am I doing here?’ He knew that his actions were not right so he decided to go back to his father.

Do our actions wake up our conscience so that we can go back to God and fix things? Many Christians do negative actions because they have a sleepy conscience. They keep on doing wrong but it doesn’t bother them. Why is this? They forget about the justification of life.

When somebody dies everyone cries, but they forget that the soul cries as well. Woe to the soul that cries after death, it is better for your soul to cry while you are still alive. Once you are dead there is no grace and no forgiveness.

Many people on this earth find it hard to go back to the place where they came from and decide to leave altogether. This boy had the courage to go back to his dad because he knew that his father’s servants had a better life than he, so he accepted to be his father’s servant.

We have great value in God’s eyes. The Bible says that even angels will adore us and that we are above angels. Angels are our Dad’s (God) servants. Do angels have holy lives? Are their spiritual lives better then ours? Yes, because they are our Father’s servants. So we also must go back to our Dad and say, “Father, here I am and I don’t deserve to be called your child, but take me as your servant”. Because God is full of grace and kindness He will do something.

When this son was walking back his father saw him and ran up to him and welcomed him with open arms. It is the same with our God, when you say “from today on I give up drinking and want to go back to God”, God will run to you and open His arms with hugs. Unfortunately, sometimes we forget that God is our father.