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14For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility 15by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. Ephesians 2:14-15

Freedom in Christ:

In the movie, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Kevin McCallister lives his dream vacation, spending a week in New York City with his dad’s credit card. Without even blinking, he buys a limousine, tons of candy, and full room service in a posh hotel. When his panicking parents finally recover him, Kevin’s dad receives the bill for his lifestyle. As an adult, I now realize that the McCallister family had to make significant sacrifices to cover that bill.

Nothing ruins our relationship with God faster than failure to obey the requirements for a perfect world. It creates a barrier, preventing God from having a genuine relationship. It’s not as if God couldn’t ignore our inability to follow His directions, but it would be incredibly dishonest of Him. God can never be a liar.

Instead of forcing God to lower His values to have a perfect relationship with us, He has to pursue a riskier plan, finding someone to bear the weight of our imperfections. Jesus saw the gap between humanity and God and volunteered to close it by paying for the damages to God’s laws and decrees.

That means that God will never press charges or revoke anyone who is seeking a relationship with him for any reason. There is no hostility from him. Kevin might be grounded for life because of his gigantic credit card bill, but God will never renege on Jesus’ payment for our rule-breaking.

FIGURE IT OUT:

14For He Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility 15by abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments and decrees. He did this to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace 16and reconciling both of them to God in one body through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility.

17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through Him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Eph 2:11-17

  1. Read over the passage. Circle the words and phrases that stood out to you.
  2. Why is the writer so concerned about peace in this passage?
  3. What joys do we now have with full access to God? What benefits does God get?

It is such an honor to have you reading The Checkpoint. Please check out our first published book, The Year One Devotional. It features sixty devotionals covering anime, comics, video games, movies, and TV. It’s the official Devotional for the media geek.