Category Archives: Romans

“X” Marks the Spot

Posted on May 7, 2017 | Leave a comment

Romans 6:19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness.

Sometimes when I’m reading Scripture I find myself going over or coming back to a particular spot. It’s like a mental STOP sign. It works just like in driving; come to a complete stop, don’t coast on through. I’m convinced that’s the very thing I’m supposed to look at carefully before proceeding. Consider this “example from everyday. life”

Impurity__________ X→__________Holiness

Have you ever thought about impurity as having the power to force you to obey wickedness? That’s slavery. Maybe you wonder how much holiness you need to offer yourself as a slave to righteousness? Let me set you mind at ease…none!

The line is life. X marks the spot in your life where Jesus became real to you and “righteousness leading to holiness” became your new direction. Spoiler Alert: there are going to be things that happen in your life when you find yourself on the wrong side of the “X” but here’s the thing: don’t miss that little arrow in my illustration, it really matters. That little arrow doesn’t ever change – because it’s Jesus holiness that is your righteousness and the destination is settled!

Leave a comment

Posted in Daily Faith, Romans, Sunday

Tagged , , , , , ,

Romans 5:1 – 2 Learning from Two Versions

Posted on May 3, 2017 | Leave a comment

NIV [New International Version] 5:1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

TLB [The Living Bible] 5:1 So now, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith in his promises, we can have real peace with him because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. 2 For because of our faith, he has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to actually becoming all that God has had in mind for us to be.

As much as I love the book of Romans and the NIV version it’s easy to read familiar words and phrases like “justified, peace with God through Jesus, grace in which we now stand, and boast in the hope of the glory of God” and let them slip by because I know I believe them. The challenge is not to let that happen. I want the truth of Scripture to be more important to my everyday life than that. That’s when I’m thankful for being able to read another version like The Living Bible, and be reminded how much those familiar phrases matter.

I am “justified” because God sees my faith in his promises through Jesus’ eyes. The reality of peace with God is Jesus Christ has done that for me. My faith is the gift of access to the grace that gives me confidence I can look forward to actually becoming all that God has in mind for me to be.

The Living Bible is a paraphrase created by Kenneth N. Taylor, the founder of Tyndale House and first published in 1971. Dr. Taylor used a previously translated version, the American Standard Version of 1901, to create The Living Bible. Taylor intended his paraphrase to put the basic message of the Bible into easier-to-read language, not to replace accepted translations.

The New International Version is a completely original translation of the Bible developed by more than one hundred scholars. The Committee of Bible Translation was charged to meet every year to review, maintain, and strengthen the NIV’s ability to accurately and faithfully render God’s unchanging Word as new discoveries are made about the biblical world and its languages.

Don’t neglect the privilege you have to read other versions of Scripture, especially when they seem familiar to you.  God will make his truth worth your effort.

Leave a comment

Posted in Romans, Wednesday

Tagged , , ,

Complete Trust or Confidence

Posted on April 30, 2017 | Leave a comment

NIV Romans 4 18-22…a homemade amplified study using the dictionary.  It’s just another way to establish our confidence in Scripture and enhance our own [1] complete trust or confidence in it.
Definitions
[1] Hope: a feeling of expectation and desire
[2] Faith: complete trust or confidence
[3] Unbelief: lack of religious belief; an absence of faith.
[4] Righteousness: being morally right or justifiable.

18 Against all [1] expectation and desire, Abraham in [1] expectation and desire believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

19 Without weakening in his [2] complete trust or confidence, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead.

20 Yet he did not waver through [3] lack of religious belief; an absence of [2] complete trust or confidence regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his [2] complete trust or confidence and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

22 This is why “it was credited to him as [4] being morally right or justifiable.

Leave a comment

Posted in Romans, Sunday

Tagged , , , , ,

Be Worth the Price

Posted on April 26, 2017 | Leave a comment

TLB Romans 3:27 Then what can we boast about doing to earn our salvation? Nothing at all. Why? Because our acquittal is not based on our good deeds; it is based on what Christ has done and our faith in him. 28 So it is that we are saved by faith in Christ and not by the good things we do.

The mystery of salvation is that giving everything to Christ is really we have “nothing at all” to give. Even our “faith in Christ” is a gift he’s given us. We’re just returning what we’ve been given, a little worse for the wear, so that solves the boasting problem too.

Thank God that he saw something worth saving…be worth the price!

Leave a comment

Posted in Romans, Uncategorized, Wednesday

Tagged , , , ,

Obedience of the Heart

Posted on April 23, 2017 | Leave a comment

Romans 2:13 Hearing the law does not make people right with God. It is those who obey the law who will be right with him. 14 (Those who are not Jews do not have the law, but when they freely do what the law commands, they are the law for themselves. This is true even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that in their hearts they know what is right and wrong, just as the law commands. And they show this by their consciences. Sometimes their thoughts tell them they did wrong, and sometimes their thoughts tell them they did right.)

It was only when I pasted these three verses into my digital journal that I noticed the close parenthesis at the end and realized the enclosed explanation was twice as long as the sentence it was clarifying. That simple fact seemed like a Biblical object lesson for me to think about.

Being right with God is more complicated than just knowing what the law is. Obeying the law isn’t a matter of separating the have’s from the have not’s at all.  Instead, God makes a connection to what he’s written in the heart. “They [those who do not have the law] show that in their hearts they know what is right and wrong, just as the law commands.”

The object lesson: “Right with God” is the complicated relationship between being obedient to what the brain knows about the law and the obedience of the heart desiring to freely respond to it.

Leave a comment

Posted in Object Lesson, Romans, Sunday

Tagged , , , ,

Live By Faith

Posted on April 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

Romans 1:17 The Good News shows how God makes people right with himself—that it begins and ends with faith. As the Scripture says, “But those who are right with God will live by faith.” NCV (New Century Version)

“But those who are right with God will live by faith.” That’s the bottom line of belief, beginning to end. Of course we should live by faith. Of course we want to be right with God. Of course, it’s all about faith but what does that mean in day-to-day life? We try so hard to make a right life with God be about what we’ve learned, what we do, how skilled we are and even who we know. Did you notice all the “we’s?” That’s the struggle. It’s hard to avoid inserting yourself into the description of what living a life of faith and being “right with God” looks like.

If you had to come up with a definition of what it means to live by faith, could you? Could you define what faith is in your own words without cliche’s, without inserting what you do or don’t do and even without quoting scriptures? That’s what I’m asking myself as I try to write my definition.

““But those who are right with God will live by faith.”
• With the awareness life will be good, whatever happens
• Knowing having no control isn’t the same as helplessness
• Not needing to know everything about it to be confident in it
• Depending on yet undiscovered reserves of strength

If you try writing your definition of living by faith, please think about adding your results in a comment to me. I’d love to post them.

Leave a comment

Posted in Daily Faith, Romans, Wednesday

Tagged , , , ,

Promise of Forgiveness

Posted on April 14, 2017 | Leave a comment

Romans 8:1 Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life [a]in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, [b]weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of [c]sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. NASB

Everything that led up to that day of condemnation so long ago has led you to this day we’ve come to call Good Friday. We get a lot of practice learning about the crucifixion of Christ being the bridge of forgiveness between us and God and between himself and us. There’s a third reality to that sacrifice that’s much harder to wrap our heads around. It was a sacrifice to set us “free from the law of sin and of death… free to believe “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

That’s what what this solemn day is about. The sinless Savior did what no law, priest, pastor or counselor could do. He condemned the sin that our human flesh could so easily use against us and replaced it with his promise that we could be free to walk according to his Spirit. This day the promise of forgiveness became our reality.

Leave a comment

Posted in Good Friday, Lent, Romans

Tagged , , ,

Where There’s Smoke…

Posted on March 5, 2017 | Leave a comment

Romans 2:4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

It seems harder to deal with repenting after you’ve walked with Jesus for a while. The “big” stuff was so obvious there was no hesitation about what needed to go. That was good, but this is the season to take another look. There’s a hidden closet where the evil one has stashed some of my less obvious sins. That makes them really easy to forget about. They’re smoldering, fiery darts that will be used as weapons of contempt for God’s “kindness, forbearance and patience” and to discredit the reality of his work in me.  I caught a whiff of smoke and realized where there’s smoke…there’s fire.  it’s time to put out these fires.

• The well-meaning prayer request with “too many details” about someone else’s crisis can become a weapon that impacts other people’s response to them.  I need to remember God already knows every detail!

• The wrong tone of voice, even when used with “just the right” words, is a devilish eraser capable of wiping out the validity of God’s work in my life to the ears that hear them.

• Using the Word of God as a weapon to verbally discipline someone or manipulate their behavior is a serious violation of my trust in God’s sovereignty, and it’s unkind.   The power of the Word lies  in “realizing that God’s kindness is [what’s] intended to lead you [both] to repentance.”

The closet has been aired out.  I’m waiting for the smoke to clear. Amen [So be it!]

Leave a comment

Posted in Luke, Romans, Sunday

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Firstlight

Posted on February 19, 2017 | Leave a comment

Romans 13:11 And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12 The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

I wonder if the reason so many of us do our Bible study early in the morning is because intuitively we understand daybreak is a perfect object lesson of what God is saying through Romans. It’s surely one day nearer our salvation, by default, if nothing else.

The first thing you do if you’re an early riser is switch on the lights…and maybe grab a cup of coffee to get you going. We depend on the things we know to do in those first hours. Outside that personal space there’s another reality. It’s a shadowy and dark landscape that plays hide and seek with what you can see until the first visible signs of light signal the beginning of the day. That’s a great image to think about in regard to learning to live a life of faith that includes devotional time.

We all begin in that place where our dependence and security are on the things we know to do. Those early hours are the object lesson where we clearly see the difference between artificial light and real daylight. Right there waiting for daybreak with your Bible in your lap [or in my case my iPad version] those words “night is nearly over; the day is almost here” are the “real” firstlight that can become the armor for your new day.

Leave a comment

Posted in Romans, Sunday

Tagged , , , , , , ,

“Listening”

Posted on February 15, 2017 | Leave a comment

“Just because I have listened carefully and intently to one thing from God does not mean that I will listen to everything He says.” From Devotion of Hearing by Oswald Chambers

These last few days I’ve spent some time thinking about what my goals are when I read the Bible. Sometimes I am unsure about what to read. I really am trying to “hear” what I read but nothing “speaks” to me. It seems presumptuous to look at God’s Word and say, “nope, not that” but I do that at times. Here’s the bottom line of even that very selective reading plan…I’m there and so is God.

It’s times like that when the devotional “words” of personal heroes of the faith like Oswald Chambers can be a welcome catalyst of direction. His title and simple confession I quoted above reminded me that even my written words can become a “devotion of hearing.” The secret is learning to be a better “listener” as I read what God has to say for himself…and write myself a note so I’ll remember.

Jeremiah 33:3 (ESV) Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.

Romans 10:17 (ESV) So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Luke 11:28 (ESV) But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”

Hebrews 2:1 (ESV) Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it.

Leave a comment

Posted in Hebrews, Jeremiah, Luke, Romans, Wednesday

Tagged , ,