Ka-Ching! Romans 4
What does “ka-ching” make you think of? Hopefully you think of a cash register that is ringing up a sale! Money is coming in and your account is being credited. Romans 4 has a lot of “ka-ching-ing” happening! But God is not counting what you might think!
Many people think God is sitting on His throne in heaven just waiting for us to do something wrong or right so he can either debit or credit our spiritual bank account. Picture a ledger or a bank deposit slip. You have places for the credits and the debits so the banker can give an account of your balance. Does God have a holy calculator where He is keeping up with all of this? Oh my goodness – we could not be further from the truth if we have this picture in our mind! While He does know everything we do, He isn’t looking for us to mess up. He is our biggest fan.
Romans chapter 4 gives us a case study in what Paul has just described to us in the first 3 chapters. He has blasted any chance we thought we might have to earn our way to heaven no matter if we are a Jew or a Gentile. All of us fall short of God’s glory. Paul gives a case study to illustrate this very thing in chapter 4 using Father Abraham as an example. The apostle was going to show them how one of their greatest forefathers will fit into this new paradigm (change of thinking) of being justified by faith rather than works.
If anyone could have gotten into heaven based on works, Abraham certainly could have. Then he would have grounds to brag about himself. But, Paul pulls the chair out from under this logic immediately. Since we are justified by grace through faith, not of works, then there is no room for bragging (Romans 4:2). This is because it is our faith that is reckoned as our righteousness, not our works. The word reckoned is an accounting term that means to credit an account. Abraham did many good works, but God did not count those as righteousness. Genesis 15:6 tells us that Abraham believed God and his belief was counted as his righteousness. Believe and faith in Romans 4, come from the same Greek root word, pistis.
So think back to the banking term “reckoned”. God is not counting your sins and your good works. Do not be deceived into thinking that if your good works out number your bad works, you can get into heaven. No ma’am, no sir! The only way we can get into heaven is by accepting God’s payment for our sin – His son Jesus Christ. He is ours for the asking. All we have to do is believe – just like Abraham!
So what is God counting? He is counting every time we step out and demonstrate our faith in Him. I count the word reckon at least 10x in the NAS version of this scripture. Child of God, step out on your faith! It is a scary thing because sometimes we may fall. Remember Peter? He stepped out on the water to walk to where Jesus was calling to him. He ended up falling into the water, but at least he had enough faith to get started. God counts every act of faithfulness as righteousness. So get out there where the action is. God will reward you and it is a lot more fun on the faith-edge with Jesus than sitting on the bench being scared to death! God will ring your faith up on His holy calculator as righteousness. Ka-Ching!