Romans 3

Romans 3

God is a God for both Jews and Gentiles alike! That is the point Paul is really trying to drive home in Romans 3. The Jews are just special. God chose them as a people to come to earth by. So the Jews felt that Jesus was theirs, but this isn’t true. The Jews were chosen to be a light, to be held to a higher standard, and to share the good news of Christ. They had advantages in know who Jesus was and because of this they had no excuses when it came to spreading the news.

Jumping over to verses 5, 6, 7, and 8 Paul tells us that he is speaking from flesh here. He is asking the questions we often ask ourselves: “God has to forgive us, doesn’t He? Isn’t that His job?” Nope. Wrong. God CHOOSES to forgive you. He drowns us in his mercy and love when we don’t deserve it. We sin, he forgives us; we walk away, he is waiting for us when we decide to come back; we can’t get to him all the way, he meets us halfway. We don’t deserve Any of this! The only thing we deserve is death, it’s harsh, I know, but it’s true and sometimes the truth hurts, sometimes you can’t handle it.

Within in this chapter Paul quotes Psalms 14:1-3. It consist of question, questions about any and all sin you may or may not have committed. Take a second, right now and open your Bible to these verses, read them…God will know if you read them ;). Done? Now think to yourself…Have I ever lied? Have I ever hurt someone’s feelings? Our answer is YES! As it says in verse 23 “for ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” To God sin is sin and any sin makes us a sinner. My friend once gave me a fun little analogy. It goes like this: as humans we rate our sin. Murder is a lot worse than lying, right? Not to God. Say lying counts for 1 soda can, stealing is 4, and murder is 8. We are going for a bard graph kind of thing. The world sees the soda cans straight on, stacked higher for the worse sin, but God looks down and sees all these cans from the top. God sees them all the same. Hopefully that lame little analogy makes this stick with you.

Towards the end in verses 28 and 29 Paul finally gives us the “wonderful news.” There is a way to be forgiven! We must trust Christ to take away our sins by what he did for us on the cross. “Trusting means putting our confidence in Christ to forgive our sins, to make us right with God, and to empower us to live the way he taught us” (Life Application Study Bible). This forgiveness is available to anybody and everybody, no matter your background or past behavior, because everyone deserves a second chance and everybody can be forgiven.

There was one foot note I found very inspiring. I didn’t have much thought on it though, because it was already spelled out. It’s on verse 28: “Why does God save us by faith alone? (1) Faith eliminates the pride of human effort, because faith is not a deed that we do. (2) Faith exalts what God has done, not what people do. (3) Faith admits that we can’t keep the law or measure up to God’s standards—we need help. (4) Faith is based on our relationship with God, not our performance for God.” I really just love the break down of Faith. To me, it’s really fascinating and inspiring and it makes me think of my weakness. Especially in the third point, we need help. In 2 Corinthians 12:9 Paul quotes Jesus who says “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” It’s just nice to know that we don’t always have to be strong and keep that brave face on. It is good to breakdown and submit to God, especially in you weakest times.  “For when I am weak, you are strong” 2 Cor. 12:10.

The last verse I want to talk about is 18. I saved it for last because what I wanted to share doesn’t really apply to the rest of chapter 3. Verse 18 says “These is no fear of God before their eyes.” Fear of God? Yup. We are told to fear God: Leviticus 25:17 “…but fear your God. I am the LORD (Yahweh) your God.” It was explained to me in two parts, one somewhat nicer than the other. Part one: God is your father and you should fear him like you fear a father. It’s a respectful fear, you don’t want to disappoint him, you want him to be proud of you, and you don’t want to get in trouble by him. Part two: you should and need to Fear God! It’s difficult to wrap your head around (this is someone talking at me) but with the snap of his fingers, probably less than that, you’re dead. God wiped out an entire people because they were sinning against him and they turned to their fleshly desires. All but 8 died. That is the story of Noah and the ark. God wiped them out and He could do the same to us. He won’t, but he could. He won’t because of the rainbow. God promised that he would never wipe out a people like that again. He will show his unconditional love, mercy, and patience (the story of Noah – Genesis 5:25 – 10:1). It says that one of Gods days is a thousand of our days (2 Peter 3:8). It wouldn’t be too tough to wait a day then, but who are we to make God wait on us?

So here is what we should be thinking about:

     1.  What sins have we committed that we have been washed clean of, and what that cleans look like.          Meditate of the fact that Jesus, a perfect man, died so we could live in sin.

     2.  What does fearing God look like to you? How do you understand it, what does it look like in your life, how does it motivate you to change your actions and behavior?

I know these are staying kind of long, read them at your own pace. That’s the beauty of the internet: you can access it anytime your little heart desires

P.S. I purposefully didn’t write out as many verses. Open your bible ;) 

Romans 2

Romans 2

I LOVE how Paul is so blunt! Right off the bat in theses first 11 verses Paul hits us with a huge conviction, but lets start with verse one: “you have no excuses, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things.” Bam! Paul totally just called Rome, and us, out! We often call others out because I think we notice sin more when it is affecting us rather then when our sin is affecting others. As Christians we need to make sure that we are praying constantly for God to show us our sins so we can work on them, and as an effort to do so we should look at ourselves when we see other sin to see if that sin is a problem for us too. Also, just a little connecting verse of verse one is Matthew 7:2 “for in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.” This is a good reminder of our certain judgment, and humbles us quite a bit, haha. Now here is your harsh reality. In verse 11 Paul says “For there is no partiality with God.” None! God doesn’t care if you were the nicest person on the planet, if you did not or do not have a relationship with him you’ll be judged as living in the darkness. My footnotes remind us that “eventual judgment is certain” and then it recommends Revelation 20:11-15 for more on judgment. Here is where this hit me.

“11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Revelation is written by John to reveal the full identity of Christ and to give warning and hope to believers. So in some way this is supposed to be hopeful…

We cannot escape our certain judgment; so keep this second death in the back of your head as a little motivation.

Onto a happier note:

Verses 2:12-15 answered a question I always had as a kid (not that I am much older than a kid). What happens to people who never see the bible or hear about God, do they get to go to heaven? Even if they’re bad? Well, my footnotes put it into words wonderfully. “Those who know God’s written Word and his law will be judged by them. Those who have never seen a Bible still know right from wrong, and they will be judged because they did not keep even those standards that their own consciences dictated.” This goes back to the first chapter a bit; if we know God’s word and do now utilize or share it, we fall short of the glory of God.

The last two sections, verses 17 to 29, talk a lot about practicing what we preach. Are we telling others to do things that we ourselves are not willing to do? In verses 21 and 22 Paul tells the Jews that they need to teach themselves by their own laws, not others. It’s kind of weird to hear that though, because the Jews knew their law so well! Don’t quote me on this, but I was once told that Jewish teachers of the law had to memorize either the whole, or a large part, of the Old Testament. They had to memorize it! I can’t even memorize vocabulary for a class! Anyways…simply know God does not make you a good believer, having a relationship with God and doing his works do. Don’t be a hypocrite! In verse 24, “For ‘THE NAME OF GOD IS BLASPHEMED AMONG THE GENTILES BECAUSE OF YOU,’ just as it was written.” My Bible has it in all caps (NASB), I love it because I feel like it yells important verses at me, and this is one of them. Paul is quoting Isaiah 52:5 here, look it up ;). One of the most difficult concepts to understand when you become a Christian (I think) is knowing that you will be in constant judgment from the world. It is our duty as Gods people to show Gods light, love, and mercy. For some you be the only ‘God’ they see and what they see in you is what they assume All Christians are. It’s a big responsibility, that is why we nee to make sure we know what’s up and we know Gods Word, and how we need to behave to be a light.

My challenge to you is to take some time to ‘meditate’. Take time to analyze yourself, your sin, and your judgment. Just take 30 minutes. At the beginning pray that God shows you your sins and at the end pray that he helps you to cleanse yourself of them. Also, if you're anything like me and can't sit in a quite room there are a few links at the bottom for 'meditating' music.

Thanks for reading, sorry this one is so long, Paul is a bit long winded ;)

Have a Wonderful Wednesday friends.

Quite meditation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cGl5ye0Li0
More up beat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cfemCP2K3Q
Watery: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj8p9DofvZA
OR if you have Pandora just make a "nature sounds" station, and if you don't have a Pandora, Get one! http://www.pandora.com

School Daze

College has officially started, I am sure for many of us. No one wants to lose their summer sleep in days and lazy afternoons, but the way I look at it is: you're that much closer to graduation and your career.  For me starting school is somewhat exciting, but that wears by the second class or so. 
So, for all of us starting this rut of school here's a little verse that keeps me going: 
Colossians 3:23

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.

This is a very inspirational and eye opening verse for me. I have always had trouble (and still do) putting school before God, but this verse reminds me that that's not why we are here. We are here by God to do his work, and bring glory to him, and another little conviction for you: Matthew 6:19 and 20 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal."
The works we do for this world are wasted and will die when we do (sorry to be so morbid) but the works we do for God are stored up in heaven and they bring glory to our Father. 

So to all of you who have started or will be starting school soon, and even at work, remember Colossians. Shine light on your campus and in your office, and work for the Kingdom not the world.
Best of luck to you.

Song of the day:
Blessed 
By: Brett Dennen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0l8f27jVUA

I am going to be going through Romans for the first few weeks of school. A mentor type friend of mine, Melissa Jimenez, told me that this would be a good book to go through because it tells us who God is and how He wants us to behave. So, like a  good little mentee I jumped right into it.

Also, before we get into it I want to give credit where credit is due. I read out of a life application study bible (Zondervan) so a lot of the ideas and question that I write out are probably coming out of that, but I do get some epiphanies every now and again.

Romans

I am not going to go through the entire chapter, but rather share with you a bit of what I thought was interesting, and maybe some questions that popped up for me.

First off, Romans is a letter written by Apostle Paul to the Christians in Rome. During this time the “Roman empire controlled most Europe North Africa, and the Near East (see map to your left, dark orange is Roman territory).” Christians were the ‘odd man out’ when it came to worship in Rome, and Paul wrote this letter to help encourage, lead, and love them.

Romans 1

- Paul jumps into it right away in 1:5 by telling us who Jesus is and what he has done for us.  Paul reminds us in this verse that it is a responsibility when we accept God. We are now on a journey for the rest of our lives to become more like Him! To forgive, love, and share the message of God just as Jesus and his disciples did.

- In verse 12 Paul tells us his reason for wanting to visit Rome. He want “be encouraged together…each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine.” Here Paul is showing what a humble guy he is. As Christians today we should follow this example, but like any good relationship it cannot be forced. We must first accept the people or person for who they are before we try to have an effect on them.  This verses reminds me of Proverbs 27:17 – As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. We need to utilize our relationships and learn from one another. We don’t take enough time to just listen now a day. We always have something to say or something to look at or think about while another person is talking to us, but how much richer would our relationships be if we just took the 20 minutes or hour to listen? If you feel so inclined you should check out the story of Jesus healing Jairus’s daughter, but pay close attention to the woman who touches his robe as he is making his way through the crowd, and notice the time he takes to listen to her whole story.

- Next in verse 18 and 19 Paul hits a very interesting topic. It says “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is know about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them.” In other words (at least what I took from it) because we know this truth we need to share it, not keep it to ourselves and if we do it’s considered sin.  We only know God because He allows us to know Him.

- The last thing I want to mention is the problem Rome had with idolatry. In verses 21-23 “For even though the knew God they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools…” This one hit me pretty hard. We know of God, but do we really know Him? In James 2:19 and 20 it says, “You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder. But are you willing to recognize, you foolish fellow, that faith without works is useless?” Foolish means, unknowledgeable and although it’s hard to admit, I am totally a fool! Now taking this verse (from Romans) into today. We may not have idols like they did in Paul’s time but we still have idols, are phones. I for one am the worst at this, I am constantly messing around on my phone. We are so consumed by technology today that we hardly take the time know God. To read his word instead of scrolling trough pinterest, to pray instead of watching cat videos on youtube, or to sit and listen instead of filling our ears with music. This is definitely something I feel convicted about because without my phone I feel naked, and that is not ok.

So here’s a little challenge for you (and myself) this week, or even for the day, turn your phone of or put it ‘do not disturb mode’ and listen, pray, read. Take the time to be with God, you’ll be amazed at how refreshed you feel.  #phonefasting