Romans 11, With A Twist

Hello Friends.  Lets just ignore the fact that I skipped posting last week.

My excuse: classes started.  Even though I only have 4 this semester they are kicking my butt.  For any of you that care, I am taking Statistics (again -_-), Sign Language 2, Cultural Geography, and Ceramics.  I have class everyday! I did this on purpose though because I n  Yes, I am lazy and unmotivated, but I am also a wonderful planner because I am forcing myself to wake up at 7:30 and get going! Yea!

eed something to do to get me out of bed.

That’s enough about me though, let us talk about Jesus!

Romans 11 is worded slightly weird.  There are certain things that Paul says that are just worded backwards and kind make God out to be somewhat of a favorites kind of guy.  He’s not.  I mean, He has His covenant with the Jews and all, but just to be clear right off the bat, God doesn’t have favorites.

There is only one part of this chapter that I really, genuinely loved.

Verses 16 – 23

16 If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are too. 17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, 18 do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. 19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” 20 Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; 21 for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either. 22 Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. 23 And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

            Here Paul was talking to the Christians. He is warning them not to feel superior because God rejected some Jews. Abraham’s faith is like the root of a productive tree, and the Jewish people are the tree’s natural branches. Because of faithlessness, the Jews were the broken branches. Gentile believers have been grafted into the tree like a wild olive shoot. Both Jews and Gentiles share the tree’s nourishment based on faith in God; neither can rest on heritage or culture for salvation. This is from my footnotes.

            What I loved about this was how it talked about getting your roots right, and how none of us are saved just because we have Christian parents, churches, friends, anything! We have to own our faith! We need to make it our own, and we all deserve to do this. Take up your cross and follow Him. Let your roots be steadfast in Him. Build your house upon the rock!  It’s all throughout the bible. A constant reminder that it our roots are not in God we cannot bare good fruit, we can’t be a light to others, we will not have a relationship with Christ, and we cannot own out own faith. It is that Hardcore!

            Think of these roots as your heart, or better yet, your brain (I am sick of people acting like the heart does all the work). If your brain did not connect to the rest of your body, you wouldn’t be able to function. This is also a kind of cool analogy because neurons kind of look like trees, haha.  Anyway! Brain equals roots! We need to set our mind on God in order for our bodies to function properly.  Without Him our brains can’t function and we will not have roots to our body. Is this making sense? We would be body dead. Unable to act or control anything that happens to us and unless our minds (our roots) are strong enough we will become the devils puppet. 

Do you get it? Unless our minds are strong enough we will become the devils puppet!

Think about that this week and here is your challenge: make your roots stronger this week! Build upon the rock, take up your cross, you can do it.

Have a beautiful week! Love you!

Song of the week:

The Best Is Yet To Come

By: Stacy Kent

Because it is a wonderful song and she has a beautiful voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5zWotTNXoM

Romans 9

Hello all and happy night before most of you have to go back to work/school.  Fortunately for me I have nothing but time on my hands so I am able to stay “on schedule.”  So here we are, Romans 9 just above halfway done.

There are 3 critical points within this chapter that I want to touch on, the first being in verses six through eight. 

But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel; nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s descendants, but: “through Isaac your descendants will be named.” That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.

Here Paul is referring to the covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 17.  It is not by biology or flesh that we are Abraham’s decedents, therefor inherits to the promise, but through the promise we are decedents.  I feel that this is an idea that is often overlooked by most readers.  We are simply sons and daughters of Abraham, and I knew when I was little I definitely thought we all came from him.  I blame this on the song we used to sing in Sunday school “father Abraham.” Here is the song if you so wish to hear it.  However, there is more lineage than that, but I don’t know it.  Every promise God makes in the bible is a promise to us now because we know it is a wholehearted promise. 

The second point is verses eleven through sixteen.  Here Paul will truly show us what God’s about and will break down for us what we are in His likeness.  These verses, for me, are very convicting.

for though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad, so that God’s purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works but because of Him who calls, it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.” What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

God knows our hearts before we even develop them.  He knows who is pure and who is stone.  He does not reward one over the other though and he does not hold our coldness against us.  He simply uses the one that allows themselves to be used.  Paul quotes Exodus 33:19 in verse 15 and here we are shown that out God cannot be controlled and He is not at are beck and call.  So often we question and challenge Gods will for our lives, but who are we to do this against our creator?  My foot notes put Gods way simply for us: “Keep in mind the kind of God we worship: He is sovereign; he is not arbitrary; in all things he works for our good; he is trustworthy; he will save all who believe in him.  When we understand these qualities of God, we know that his choices are good even if we don’t understand all his reasons.” 

Let that sink in…

In verse twenty and twenty-one we are given a summarized illustration of the verses above:

On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

The last point I want to touch on is in verses thirty to thirty-three. 

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, “Behold, I lay in Zion a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense,
And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.”

Paul is making an extremely important point here.  It is made numerous times throughout the bible but we, having the forgetful nature that we do, need to be reminded constantly.  The point being: actions speak louder than words.  The Gentiles, Gods not chosen people, gained righteousness through their actions and faith, not through the law.  Where as most of the Jews stay so strict to the law that they are distracted by it.  The Gentiles understood Gods grace and did their very best to honor him with their lives.  My footnotes so nicely put that here “Paul explains that God’s plan is not for those who try to earn his favor by being good; it is for those who realize that can never be good enough and so must depend on Christ.”  The Jews worked to be good enough and the Gentiles lived by favorite saying: “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.”  Another wonderful point that my footnotes make is about verse 32.  Many people feel that they need to earn their way into heaven when this is not the case at all.  “God asks us to be humble but many of us are unwilling to humble ourselves because that requires us to put our will at Gods disposal.”  This ties nicely back with verse 20, we think we know what is best for ourselves when in actuality we know nothing.  Maybe we don’t feel that God taking away our child, parents, pet, ect. was fair, but it was best because out of that we have been able to turn to God and grow in our relationship.  We grew in our relationships with those who love and care for us, with our church family, and so much more. 

God made us strong enough to deal with whatever he throws our way, he gives us the tools we will need and he will always be there.  God tells us this in 1 Corinthians 10:13

No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.

Challenge of the week:  Look at everything you life right now good, bad, difficult, happy, heartbreaking, etc. Now…thank God for it, all of it. Whether he is blessing you or challenging you, you are growing. 

Also, here is a fun little story I found, it’s really short: http://2good2lose.com/thoughts.shtml 

Romans 7: Believers United to Christ

Geez! I feel like I just colored this chapter orange (that’s the color of my highlighter).  This chapter brings back one of Paul’s main ideas, that we are all equal.  Whether we only know the law, only know the scripture, or think we know everything.  Paul reminds us again in verses 5 and 6 of Jesus’s death for us, and how when we die in our old life we become new.  Verse 5: “For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death. 6: But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.”  When Jesus was crucified we were disconnected from the law.  Not law in a spiritual sense but in a physical sense.  God created the law but man determines it, therefore it is of this world and this world is of sin.  However it is all very confusing and Paul begins to sound a bit like Captain Jack (Sparrow) in these verses, especially 14-17: “For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. 15: For what I am doing, I do not understanding; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. 16: But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. 17: So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.”

What?! So Paul is blaming what he is doing, but doesn’t want to be doing, on sin?  Not himself, but the sin in him.  Alright…so thanks to my handy-dandy foot notes here is what Paul is trying to say.  He is sharing 3 lessons with us, lessons that he learned while trying to deal with his sinful desires. (1) Knowledge is not the answer.  Paul was ok with not understanding what the law demanded.  (2) Self-determination doesn’t succeed.  We can’t do things on our own.  Christians get their power and strength from God. (3) Becoming a Christian DOES NOT stamp out all sin and temptation from a person’s life.  This third one may be the most important.  Like I said in yesterdays post, becoming a Christian isn’t all hunky-dory.  If anything becoming a Christian means you will be even more tempted, and when you give into that temptation those around you will judge you twice as harshly.  For some people you will be the only Christian face they meet and by you they will measure and judge all Christians, so keep that in mind.

Lastly I want to mention verses 21, 24, and 25 (ya know, sense they’re at the end).  Also I want us to notice that Paul is speaking from his own experiences and struggles here, this is straight up, hard-core Paul!  Verse 21: “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.”  Paul totally fesses up and acknowledges the fact that he is made of evil.  He is made of this world, but he wants to do well, he wants to be right with God.  I myself, think that is a really difficult thing for us to acknowledge and accept because we are so good at making excuses for ourselves and we are so quick to blame others. (This is where our challenge of the week will be pulled from).

Verse 24: “Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25: Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.”  Here Paul shares his inward struggle with sin; it was as real for him as it is for us.  However we can learn from Paul’s wisdom.  Whenever Paul felt lost, he would return to the beginning of his spiritual life, remembering that he has already been freed by Jesus Christ.  When you feel confused or overwhelmed by sin’s appeal, follow Paul’s example: Thank God that he has given you freedom through Jesus.  Let the reality of Christ’s power lift you up to real victory over sin. All that was from my footnotes, because they are smatter than me.  But seriously though, when we are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, depressed, glum, etc. we often try to handle things with our strength first.  We could save so much time and energy if we just train ourselves to look to God before we try anything else, and this comes with putting God First.  Not letting other worldly things come before our love and faith in God but trying our best and doing things through Gods power. 

Challenge of the week: Don’t make excuses this week.  Be honest with God and fess up your evil.  God already knows what it is that you struggle with, but He wants to hear it from you.  Fess it up and give up.  Then after that thank God.  Thank Him for taking your sin and allow yourself to be with Him for a few moments.  Try to be quiet and listen.  “Let His power lift you up to real victory over that sin/struggle.”

Song of the day:

Autumn in New York

By: Frank Sinatra

Because it's autumn and I want to be in New York, and it's Frank Sinatra!