In Romans 4 Paul gives several examples where God considered people righteous simply because of their faith. He showed that in Abraham’s case, he was considered righteous before circumcision even existed. This was an important point because the Jews were struggling with the Gentiles. They wanted them to be circumcised because the law had always required that anyone who lived among the Jews had to be circumcised and by law, the Jews were not supposed to associate with people who were uncircumcised. The Jews were pushing the Gentiles to be circumcised and Paul was trying to show them that this was not necessary for the Gentiles. He used Abraham as an example of being credited as righteous for simply believing in God. He used King David as an example of faith because he celebrated the fact that when he openly sinned and after he repented that he knew by faith that he was forgiven. He used Abraham in another example because he believed and trusted God when he was over 100 years old, and God told him he would be the father of all nations. What I really pulled from this was that faith comes in lots of forms. I love the fact that it takes the same faith to believe for a beautiful promise as it takes to believe that we are forgiven. Putting those two things side by side are such a powerful contrast. For some reason we tend to get hung up in our own minds and we somehow disqualify ourselves because we think God has some hidden or disqualifying rules that apply to us differently. The truth is, our faith has really nothing to do with us at all. It is all about God and if we would grasp the fact that God’s heart toward us is full of generosity and full of desire for our good, and for our healing and for our wholeness, we would not hesitate to surrender ourselves wholly and completely to Him. For some reason we hang onto stupid things of this world instead and we grip tightly to things that are not meant for our good as if God is trying to withhold something from us. Why in the world do we do this? My challenge to myself today is to evaluate the things in my life that I am afraid to trust God in and ask Holy Spirit to reveal to me why that is so I can be finally free to surrender my thoughts, desires, my obedience, and my strong will that wants to take control and exchange that all in for the peace of knowing God has the best plans for me, I can trust Him completely with absolutely anything and everything because He is for me and for my good. This is what real faith is but it can’t be partially done. It is all or nothing. It’s full and complete surrender no matter the cost.
