Today’s Reading: Romans Chapter 3 and 4
Over the past several years and being a part of this Bible journal club I have been fortunate to be able to read and dive into the Bible several times over. During these years, God continues to bring back a theme which he wants me to explore more. A couple weeks ago, the chapters in Acts that I blogged were about inclusion and coming together. This week God continues to bring this theme back to me: Every one is seen the same in God’s eyes and he is smiling.
A couple days ago, I had a great conversation with one of my dear friends. We were talking about our relationship with God and our spiritual journeys. Both of us are at different points in our journey. We have grown together; we have change together; and we continue to encourage each other daily. We acknowledged how amazing it is the more that we grow our relationships with God the more that he will reveal to us. Here is the example we had: picture a room filed with jewels and riches all around you, but there is a fog covering the room. But the only way to reveal these items would be to have a better relationship with the owner of the room who can reveal the location. The more that you interact with the owner, the more you will find these treasures that are right in front of you.
Each of us have a relationship with God. It can be a good relationship. It can be a bad relationship. It can be a relationship of trust and dependability. It can be a relationship of disdain, hurt, and of pain. Each of us have a relationship that is personal that only God and you know about. I have friends who have great relationships with God. I have friends who have a thirst for God but have been jaded by current different situations. I have friends who have a relationship with God by believing he doesn’t exist. But each of us has a relationship with God. In this section of Romans, Paul addresses the relationship that we have with God being Jew or non-Jew.
Romans 3: 29-30 (MSG)
29-30 And where does that leave our proud Jewish claim of having a corner on God? Also canceled. God is the God of outsider non-Jews as well as insider Jews. How could it be otherwise since there is only one God? God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, both those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion.
In these chapters Paul is speaking to the Romans. He is writing to the Romans while he is in Corinth. In this letter to the Romans, Paul is showing the Jewish people how God has worked in the Jewish people and how at the same time the Jewish people have failed God. Paul also writes about how the love of God cannot be contained to one person or a people. Paul states in chapter 3, that everybody has sinned and fallen short of the mark that God has for us. The Jewish people believe that because they were chosen, they were outside of the sin factor. This division and confusion of who was right and wrong echoes in today’s society. In the end everybody needs love. Everybody needs to be embraced. Everybody has fallen short of the glory of God and God is ready to give that to us again.
Romans 4: 19-25
19-25 Abraham didn’t focus on his own impotence and say, “It’s hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child.” Nor did he survey Sarah’s decades of infertility and give up. He didn’t tiptoe around God’s promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said. That’s why it is said, “Abraham was declared fit before God by trusting God to set him right.” But it’s not just Abraham; it’s also us! The same thing gets said about us when we embrace and believe the One who brought Jesus to life when the conditions were equally hopeless. The sacrificed Jesus made us fit for God, set us right with God.
In chapter 4, Paul makes a great distinction and clarification. Paul takes his argument to the beginning of the Jewish faith: Abraham. Paul goes back to before Abraham was called to be the Father of the nations. Paul goes back to when Abraham was a man who was after God‘s heart. Paul brings this concept to the front of the faith question. Abraham is not only a father of the race, but also a father of the faith. Through Abraham the entire world was given the ability to connect with God, through Jesus. He shows that God loves all individuals before the circumcision. God loves all individuals before the sacrifices. God loves the heart of each individual by their faith. It is through the act and trust of faith that God is able to do amazing works in us. When we start to depend on God for direction and for strength it is amazing how nothing is impossible for us to accomplish. When we are trying to work through our flesh we will stumble and fall. But we will walk into faith as Abraham did we begin to do things that others have not been able to do before.
In these two chapters, we see the beginning with the foundation of what Paul is showing us how we should live. Many times we are trying to find the differences between us to justify the right and wrong of our lives in our situations. But in the end, we are all the same, we are all here by faith in God. And if we continue to acknowledge God and walk in his faith will be able to surpass and accomplish more than we have a good in our only flesh. May God continue to allow you to walk more and his faith. May God continue to lift you to new heights.
Be Blessed