Reading Paul’s letter to the church in Romans 15 reminds me today that those of us who are strong in the word and in our walk with Jesus have an obligation to set aside our own desires and our own pleasures so we can use our influence and our energy to build up those around us who are weaker in their faith. This means our time, our resources, our patience, and our instruction. Paul stresses that this is what brings unity to the body of Christ and then he makes a giant statement analogy of how the Messiah (Jesus Himself) actually did this for Israel and for the Gentiles when he said in verse 8 “The Messiah became a servant of the uncircumcised on behalf of God’s truth so that the Gentiles may glorify God for His mercy” Jesus was insulted and questioned at literally every word He spoke during His ministry on earth before He was crucified and this was all done by His own chosen people who didn’t recognize Him even with all they knew about scripture. But Jesus continued to lay aside His own will, He was never prideful or offended, but He did know how to turn them on their ear with their attempts to mince words with Him. So, what does the mean for us? It means that we don’t have the right to get offended or impatient when people don’t understand the truth right away. Our job is to help other Christ followers walk out truth with kindness, love and compassion and so much encouragement. It means that sometimes we have to speak the truth about hard or unpopular situations that other Christ-followers find themselves in, and love and care for them without getting our own feelings in the way if they don’t receive it. This is not easy to do but this is exactly what strong leaders are called to do. This is not about us. This is about reaching lost and broken people, so if our own feelings are in the way we will get in the way of the message and keep people from seeing Jesus. If we are willing to lay aside our own feelings and desires, the way God will be able to use us to reach people will be limitless. This only works when we lay our “rights” aside just like Jesus did. He could have set them all straight if He wanted to, but He was there for a purpose, and that purpose was to fulfill the will of the Father to provide salvation to the world. This is why Jesus didn’t just go and do whatever other people wanted Him to do. He was on mission. He let His friend Lazarus die for a few days because He was obedient to God on His mission. He delayed in going to heal a little girl with a fever because He was listening to the Father’s voice and staying on His mission. He only did what the Father told Him to do because He was there for a reason, and He was completely focused on that mission only. Salvation was provided to the entire world because Jesus stayed on mission. Now our mission is to share that truth with the world even of they reject it. Even if they hate us and insult us. Even if they hurt our feelings or God forbid, offend us. Jesus finished His mission and then gave us ours. Our mission is the Great Commission, and it is to “Go and make disciples.” If we stay on mission without being distracted by the responses of people, we will fulfill our purpose and there will be unity in the body of Christ that will actually attract people in the world. We have to get this right in the body of Christ if we really want to reach a lost world. Their salvation depends on it.

Reading in Romans 14 Paul was cautioning the church that we need to be careful about how we manage our own personal convictions. Both for the sake of ourselves and for the sake of others. Because the gospel is about denying ourselves, and preferring others, the focus here is really about being careful not to offend someone who is newer or weaker in their faith by doing things in front of them that they see as wrong. Paul used foods as an example because abstaining from certain foods was such a big deal in the Jewish culture. Dietary restrictions really aren’t a source of contention for the average Christian because most of us are “Gentile” born and have never had to follow a Jewish kosher diet in our entire lives. Christians today tend to squabble over other things like secular music, movies, or whether or not it’s wrong to drink alcohol or go to certain places, or use certain words. These are all personal convictions, and we all have them and we all need them. Convictions are really important because they guide our moral compass, and they help keep us focused and grounded in Christ. People who have struggled in certain areas of their lives may have a personal conviction to not associate with certain environments because for them it represents something that had a past hold on them. Maybe for one person, going to a bar leads them back into a place where they had a weakness of loneliness and going to bars to them meant that they would inevitably meet someone and go home with them. For them, going to a bar, or maybe even listening to certain type of music causes a draw on their hearts that have the potential to pull them back into that loneliness where a sin temptation arises.  For the person who knows they struggle that way, it is wisdom for them to stay away from bars so that the risk of temptation doesn’t pull them back into past sin. The decision to never enter a bar would be a wise personal conviction to them and because of their past struggle with sin, it would literally be wrong for them to go to a bar because it would violate their own personal conviction that they set for themselves.  Another person who has never struggled in this area may not understand this conviction because it has never been an issue for them. They can sit in a bar and enjoy a drink with friends and go home without any loneliness or temptation to go home with someone they met. They have no pull or struggle of any kind. If that friend flaunted his freedom and ability to go to a bar in front of his friend, or worse, made fun of his friend who has chosen to stay away from bars, he would be incredibly unloving and he would be guilty of trying to pull his friend back into sin temptation. We don’t all have the same struggles, so we don’t all have the same personal convictions. Paul makes it clear that if we have a guilt conscience about doing certain things, then these things are convictions to us and if we violate our own conscience by doing them anyway it becomes sin to us. We don’t have to share the same convictions as others, but we are absolutely responsible for respecting other people in their own convictions without trying to talk them out of them. If you talk someone out of their personal conviction you are guilty of causing them to stumble and sin. God holds us accountable for that. What I really pulled from this today was that sometimes we don’t realize when we do this to people. Sometimes people tell us their convictions and if those things are not a pull in our own lives personally, sometimes we have the tendency to downplay the fact that their conviction about it makes it wrong for them. We may feel a different kind of freedom, and our freedom is not wrong, but it becomes wrong if we flaunt our freedom to them or try to talk them out of their conviction.

Reading Romans 13 today reminds me that we are all that we are all under authority, both spiritually and under the laws of the land. God said that he set authorities in place for our good and the authorities are intended to act as servants. Obviously, we all understand how badly this can go awry, but when we are submitted to God by submitting ourselves to authorities even if they are not using their authority properly, we are under the will of God and we can fully trust Him that he will use situations, give us favor and even work on our behalf if we choose to honor and choose to trust God. I once heard someone speak on authority that also really changed my view forever. She gave a simple illustration, but the point was this. If someone above us is abusing their God-given authority we have not only the right, but the responsibility to appeal to their higher authority. We all have authority over us, so the chain stops nowhere including all the way up to God Himself.  Our attitude toward people of whom we are under authority really reflects our own attitude towards God. This one convicts my heart a lot because I have definitely done way more than my share of complaining about authorities in my life! We see the flaws of those who lead us, and we are affected directly by the decisions they make. It’s so tempting to tear them down and to complain and get other people on board with our complaints and even our wrong speculations about situations. I’m a sarcastic person by nature. I usually keep it on the funny side, but I really do like to joke and say sarcastic things when I process through hard things. When I’m frustrated this is my go-to mind escape and as I run my mouth, I usually start off funny, but I know when I’m riding the line of complete disrespect. This one is especially a challenge to me in the workplace, but I’m also mindful of how devastatingly easy this is to abuse in more familiar situations like home and family. We’re comfortable there and we are so much worse there because we live with each other and are so very aware of each other’s flaws and shortcomings that it’s so easy to dismiss our attitudes and we are so much quicker to say something rude, disrespectful, and dishonoring and we are also less sorry for it in the moment because of our familiarity. As I read through Romans 13, I was mindful not only of the authorities in my life, but also of the roles where I carry some authority. This is a great responsibility because if God Himself says that he puts authority in place then I am accountable not only to my leaders but to God for how I manage people that I lead in any kind of capacity. I have a responsibility to honor the value of anyone who serves under my leadership and to make sure they are equipped, encouraged, and sometimes respectfully corrected. This is something I take very seriously because I have deep convictions that every single person created was created in the image of God and to treat them with any kind of disrespect is to dishonor God Himself.

Reading through Leviticus chapter 16 initially brought an interesting sorrow for me as I read a completely opposite message from what I am used to reading in the New Testament. The sorrow didn’t last long, and it actually turned into a complete reversal of joy and elation as I examined the stark contrast between what we read in the Old Testament and what we are invited to in the New covenant. We are constantly reading in New Testament scripture that we are to boldly come to the throne of grace. We can come at any time and come as we are, and we have complete freedom to see Jesus, face to face at the mercy seat. We are completely unhinged, unlimited and unmasked from the presence of God. We have total and complete access because of Jesus. Nothing to be sad about here, right? But as I read Leviticus 16 the complete opposite message was being conveyed because it was the old covenant. Aaron’s two sons had gone into the tent of meeting unauthorized and offered God a “strange and unauthorized fire” in their firepans, so they died instantly. The scripture doesn’t tell us why these two brothers decided to go off and do this thing on their own, but the tent of meeting was a very serious place. In chapter 16 God was revisiting this incident with Moses and sternly warning Aaron that he could not just enter the tent of meeting whenever he wanted. In fact, there was a very long set of prescribed procedures he had to follow because he was responsible for the entire community of Israel and if he did just one of the hundreds of steps wrong, he could and would die instantly. Just like his two sons had. He literally carried the weight, the sin, and the risk of the entire community of Israel every time he went in to the tent of meeting to make these sacrifices. There were bells and ropes attached to his ankles just in case he made a mistake and dropped dead while he was in there so they would be able to drag his body out of there without being at risk themselves. As I continued reading, I noticed there was a whole procedure for him to complete the appropriate sacrifices for the community’s sin, and then release a live goat that represented all of their sin and rebellion and it was released in a remote location to wander. The person that released the goat had clean up procedures for after handling the live goat, and then Aaron had other procedures after handling and releasing the goat as well. Then he had to perform more sacrifices and things afterward as part of his purification process. This is a lot! Aaron literally carried the weight, sin, and responsibility of the entire community every time he had to perform these rituals and sacrifices. It really put a huge perspective on the fact that when Jesus came to pay the ultimate sacrifice it literally changed everything. He not only washed away our sin and our guilt, but he went much further than that because he also provided us complete and total access to himself and to the father. Because of his perfection we are allowed to look face to face with God and enter the throne room any time we want or need. We are welcomed, we are wanted, and we are so loved in this place! What a beautiful thing we have in salvation! This inspires my heart to worship because of the beautiful place of freedom we have, and it fills my heart with so much gratitude that my savior wants me in his presence. How can we not be so excited to meet him in this place of worship!

Reading in Romans 11 Paul reminds us as Gentiles that the hearts of the Jews were only temporarily hardened by God because of their disobedience, and God is using it as an opportunity to bring in the Gentiles in while also allowing the Jews to become jealous. Paul is warning us as Gentiles not to become proud over it. Since God is using this opportunity to bring us in while they are in their state of blindness and unbelief and their return will come when the full number of Gentiles come in. Paul uses an analogy of cutting off wild olive branches and grafting in other branches that are unnatural to the tree. He uses this analogy to also warns us not to take for granted or become prideful over the fact that we were brought in because if he was willing to cut off the Jews, which were his chosen people, we as the unnatural branches can just as easily be removed again. To me this is not only a relief and a hope for the restoration of the Jews, but it’s also a reminder that we can’t live loosely under grace. We need to live fully for God and chase after Him with all that we are. We need to pursue God with passion and purpose and not live life with mediocrity. It’s more than a privilege that we were brought in. We were literally saved from death to life so our lives should match that intensity in our gratefulness to serve God with everything in us.

Reading in Romans 10 was a very different shift focus from the emotions that Paul had expressed in chapter 9. Although he was obviously still very passionate about salvation for the Jews, he was now pointing toward all of the prophetic Scripture that they all should have known and recognized. He was not allowing them any room for excuse because all of the prophets that the Jews claimed to deeply respect had prophesied things ahead about the future of the Jews and if they really wanted to see it, the scriptures all pointed directly to Jesus. Even Jesus himself had been quoting many of these old prophetic scriptures to the people during his time on the earth when he ministered and healed. He was literally pulling these old prophesies out and reminding them of them so that later on they would remember what he had said and think about it and hopefully realize that these old prophesies were coming to pass right in front of them as fulfilled prophesy. Ironically, the Jews had been so completely preoccupied with trying to find fault with Jesus that instead of seeking out the actual truth, they were trying their hardest to catch Jesus saying something that contradicted the old prophets that they claimed to respect so much. Jesus often called them out on their hypocrisy because the religious leaders claimed to value the prophets so much, but they were famous for twisting and using the words of these respected prophets to manipulate the people they led and to give themselves little perks and privileges. They had a lot to gain in the ways of power and authority, so their focus was very politically minded. They worked with the government and made legal arrangements that gave them perks, power and position. They craved honor and respect so to staying in control was their supreme motive for everything they did. These religious leaders knew the scriptures very well because they were well educated in them, but since they didn’t have the heart behind it they abused people and held expectations of the people that they weren’t willing to do themselves. They taught the law with arrogance and came off with and attitude of superiority, but they were actually doing shady things on the inside while pretending to be holy and righteous. They put guilt on the people they were supposed to be leading and they completely manipulated the common people to bring offerings and money and follow rules that they themselves were actually breaking. Jesus was contently calling them out for this stuff in front of the crowds and he told the people to honor them because of their position but not to act like them. This obviously angered them because Jesus was completely exposing them and all of their hypocrisy in front of everyone so they just kept sending people to come in and try to trip Jesus up hoping he would say something that contradicted one of the respected prophets. The irony of it all is that many of these prophesies were actually very accurately telling them that they were going to see all of the signs and yet still ignore them. The ancient prophesies were very accurately predicting that they would see all kinds of signs and wonders pointing right to Jesus but that they would miss it all because they would choose religion and power instead. What I really pulled out of all of this is that our spiritual blindness is a choice. God has spoken all that we need to know, but if our focus is on our appearance, we will spend our days trying to look good and convince others that we are good when what God is really after is heart change. Our desire for growth has to come from a place of honesty if we really want to see real change in our lives. God is much less interested in a perfect track record. He is looking for us to come to him with our hearts wide open and surrendered so he can speak to us and show us who he is. This is where the real stuff gets done and this is how we are able to feel at peace knowing that God sees our honest heart and loves us exactly where we are.

Reading in Romans 9 this morning I could feel the anguish in Paul as he desperately grieved for the salvation of the Jews. After all, he himself was a Jew and he grew up with so much passion and fire for the law. He was extremely educated from childhood in all the traditional Jewish ways, and he was so devout that he was widely feared because of his intense persecution of the early church called “The Way” before Jesus literally knocked him off his horse and changed his life forever. Paul loved the Jews with all his heart, and for him to express such an emotionally driven statement to say he would almost be willing to give up his own salvation for the sake of theirs is a big deal. He wanted so badly for them to see what God had done so powerfully in his own life so that they could choose it too. He was torn and grieved over their rejection of Jesus because he was so aware that the Jews were God’s original chosen, favored people full of purpose, promise and provision just for them. But they just refused be pulled from their traditions and all that they ever knew. Paul even requoted a scripture from the prophet Isaiah that said “Look! I am putting in Zion a stone in Zion to trip over, yet the one who believes on Him will not be put to shame” Paul recognized that Jesus was the stone they were tripping over because of their lack of faith. In fact, Jesus himself had also quoted this same prophetic scripture directly to the Jews in the book of Matthew. As I read this, I thought about all of the people in the world who are also “tripping over the stone” because they grew up in religions that were built around their families and their ethnic heritages. For some, the cost of turning to Jesus means being completely cut off from their families and for others, it’s matter of spiritual blindness because the family tradition is built so deeply into their belief systems that to reject what their families have taught them feels like complete and total disrespect. Reading this today provokes me to pray for people in my life who are stuck in mindsets of family tradition. Those who haven’t yet responded to the gospel because they are either complacent, fearful of the rejection consequences or those who have just been blinded by tradition. We all have people around us that are in these categories and our hearts should grieve and desire for their salvation like Paul did for the Jews. They have been put in our paths so we can pray for Holy Spirit to reach them where they are, and so we can present the gospel to them in our daily interactions with them. We aren’t responsible for the outcome of their decision, but we should definitely be pursuing them. We are all called to be waterers and cultivators, but Holy Spirit ultimately does the drawing and leading.

Reading in Romans 8 Paul spends a lot of time talking about our mindset between walking in the spirit versus walking in the flesh. Naturally, when we are interacting with people our flesh is constantly there interpreting thoughts, motives, attitudes and offenses so this has the opportunity to keep our minds operating in a fleshly mindset, but Paul encourages us to reach past the flesh and strive to live in a spirit-minded way. This sounds super-spiritual, but what does this mean practically? It means that when we are tempted to get offended, or when we try to take control of things, or of other people that are not our responsibility, or when we try to manipulate situations and we allow our fleshly emotions start to speaking nonsense to us, we have to stop ourselves and ask Holy Spirit to show us truth about each situation and change our mindset. We can’t respond appropriately until we first address our mindset by asking Holy Spirit to show us what we need to see about a situation. This might mean that we stop for a moment and pray with or for the person who is just having a bad day and might be taking it out on us. This might mean that we give ourselves a little heart-check because we got offended by something someone said or did. Then there is the reality that sometimes people really do come against us and it’s not our imagination. God still expects us to respond in obedience to Him. This is where we lay out the problem before Him and ask Him to give us the wisdom and the power to respond with integrity so that God can then move on our behalf. As I was reading this, I was struck with the very real truth that the believers that Paul was talking to were going through very real persecution for simply being Jesus-followers. We live in America where we are free to worship Jesus and we demand our rights to do so but this is not the experience that the early church had. They were faced with the possibility of beatings, imprisonment and even death just for being part of this church move that they called “The Way”. I don’t want to get into comparisons because we shouldn’t feel guilt that we are not being persecuted this way. We are so blessed to live in the country that we do. We just have to remind ourselves that when we face opposition that we are not supposed to fight those battles with our own fleshly thoughts, ideas and emotions. We need to take each and every battle to Jesus and ask Him what he wants us to do with it. Walking in the spirit simply means that we surrender our “rights” (which goes completely against the grain of American culture) and we place ourselves in complete surrender to Jesus, not people. When we are completely surrendered to Jesus, He is able to do through us and in us, what we can’t do on our own. I love that Paul ended this chapter with these powerful words. “For I am persuaded that not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!”

Reading In Romans 7 this morning Paul used the covenant of marriage as the Jews knew and understood according to the law, as an analogy to explain how a marriage dissolved by death freed a woman to marry another without becoming an adulteress or making the new husband an adulterer. In this analogy, the law would represent the old husband and old relationship requirements in their relationship with the law. Now that former “husband” (AKA the law) was dead and gone, they were freed from that commitment and were now “married” to Jesus and the old ways of the old marriage were gone. They were free from their previous commitment of having to walk out the physical steps they had to do for each of their individual sins, because now they were in a new marriage covenant with Jesus where they are now under his grace.  Instead of submitting burnt offerings they are now submitting their hearts to Jesus and allowing his grace to actually change them (and us) instead of just forgiving them from the trespass so they wouldn’t die. This is huge!! Paul credits the law for giving him the awareness of sin, because as he put it, “How else would I have known what it is to covet if the law had not said ‘do not covet’?” But then he gets real and addresses the problem that we all have. We are still prone to sin. Our flesh is flesh and it’s at constant war with us to take over and be selfish. Paul is so relatable as he describes what we all know so well. We want to do what’s right, and the spiritual part of us longs to please God but then we’re also still very selfish and immature in our walk so when we’re weak or emotional, or tired or angry or just plain woke up on the wrong side of the bed we struggle hard to do the right thing even when we know what the right thing is. Paul says “I do what I don’t want to do, and I don’t do the things I do want to do!”  We all relate to this because this is our daily relationship with sin and growth. We’re going to fail. It’s just going to happen, but our goal is to grow and mature from it and not get caught up in shame and obsess with our failures.  I love that Paul ends this chapter so dramatically with “What a wretched man I am! Who will save me from this dying body? I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord!”

Reading In Romans 6 this morning Paul was explaining the relationship we have between sin and grace under the new covenant. There was (and still is) a misunderstanding or a misrepresentation commonly made among believers that just because our sin is covered under grace through Jesus that we aren’t supposed to “work out our sin” because we read in scripture that we can’t “work” to “earn” salvation. While this is absolutely true, Paul was explaining that under salvation through Jesus we are literally trading our lifetime relationship of bondage to sin, for a lifetime of servanthood to becoming like Christ. What I really pulled from this is that our obsession with our own selfishness is what keeps us in sin bondage, but when we really and truly understand the gift of salvation, our focus should shift from an attitude of trying our hardest not to screw up, to an attitude of, “what can I do today to become more like Jesus?” A heart of surrender to Jesus is what breaks the power of sin in our lives. When our focus is on ourselves, we are sure to trip up because we are looking at the wrong thing. When we look at Jesus with a mindset of “I want to be like Him” the focus shifts in a positive direction and the Holy Spirit empowers us to do what we struggle so hard and fail to do on our own. This is a daily surrender and because our interactions involve other people, and our responses and emotions get tangled up in the mix of it all, we have to be very careful to remind ourselves that we are all ultimately responsible to God alone in what he is requiring of us as individuals to step up to higher levels. I can’t be distracted by someone else’s response or someone else’s walk. I have to be held accountable by God for my own responses even if someone else behaves offensively toward me. I am accountable for growing in my own maturity toward Christ-likeness no matter what anyone else says or does. The beauty in this is that when we own our accountability and choose to be Christ-like in the face of opposition, we also get to stand in full and complete confidence that whatever wrong someone might try to inflict on me, God will absolutely take care of me, and I do not have to fight that battle myself. I only need to bring that concern to God and allow him to work out the details on my behalf. That is the benefit and the peace of mind that comes with being in complete surrender to Jesus.

In Romans 5 Paul explains how sin came into the world for all of us through one man, Adam. And he contrasts that our freedom from that sin came to the world for all of us through one, Jesus. This sounds like complete simplicity, and it really is, but our own minds get in the way of this understanding when we throw complicating factors in the mix. Our freedom and our redemption has already been paid for and it is completely ours through our complete surrender to Christ. But since we still find ourselves tied up in within the very real battles of our sin and our flesh motivated by our selfish desires, we get caught up in a mind game of “how saved am I”, or did I lose what was given to me when I tripped up and knowlingly or even unknowlingly allowed my flesh to overcome me? How we respond in these moments is absolutely critical! We can either run from God in our shame, or run toward God in repentance. Our undisciplined and natural tendency is always going to want to run from God first, which is what Adam tried to do when he “hid” from God in the garden and covered himself with fig leaves. Obviously, he wasn’t even capable of hiding from a God who sees all, and neither are we, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. Sometimes we would rather beat ourselves up for having the struggle than bring that struggle to the feet of Jesus and ask Him to help us overcome it, and this is where we get ourselves stuck. Sometimes for a few hours, or just for the day, but some of our issues have such a hold on us that we live in a long-term internal battle with them in our minds because we are just too ashamed to look at Jesus face to face and ask him for his help. If we only knew just how deeply he loves us even when we are deep in our sin struggles, this would so drastically change our response. But our minds lie to us and pull us in the direction of shame. Unfortunately, When we go the shame route, we allow the shame of failure to dominate our thoughts and drive us away from God by disconnecting us from our peace with God and this disrupts our confidence in our salvation. We think God is mad at us and we are also mad at us so we either self-inflect punishments on ourselves and imagine them coming from God, or we deflect our sin issue by comparing ourselves to someone else who we think might be worse off than us so we don’t have to feel so bad. Either way, when we let guilt and shame in, we are on the run in the complete opposite direction from God and we will not feel at peace again until we come back to God and repent and reconcile with Him so we can be healed.

The healthy response to our sin is so beautifully represented by King David in the story of his adulterous sin with Bathsheba (not in today’s reading, just in my thoughts as I write this) because in the middle of his complete guilt of adultery which even led to murder, King David was seen as a “man after God’s own heart” because of his response when he was confronted by that sin.  When Nathan the prophet confronted King David, his immediate response was repentance. He acknowledged his sin and accepted God’s correction knowing that the correction was for his good and would bring reconciliation between himself and God. When the child conceived in their adulterous sin died, King David grieved and accepted that consequence, but he did not stay in a state of guilt or shame. He was now reconciled back to God because of his repentant response, so he was no longer looking back at that failure. He was now also properly and honestly married to Bathsheba so now he was in a place where he could comfort his wife in their pain together, and because they moved forward after the failure instead of consuming their minds with looking back, they were rewarded by God’s favor and blessing when they conceived and gave birth to a son who would grow up to be King Solomon, the most wise king that Israel ever had. If that is not a beautiful picture of redemption, I just don’t know what is!

The main point I want to pull out of all of this is that the nature of the sin issues themselves are not what define us when we are found in sin. It is our REPONSE to our sin that determines whether we run from God and hide when we fail, or whether we run toward God in reconciliation. This is so critically important, and it changes everything! We can’t afford to wait when we identify we have an issue. Every day we need to clear the slate and make sure that we can look to Jesus face to face without a veil of shame knowing that he deeply loves us, approves of us and is with us to walk out the process of our struggles. When we stay connected to him this way and don’t allow anything to separate us from Him, we no longer have to doubt his complete favor and blessing for our lives.

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.

Romans can feel so turbulent to read as Paul goes back and forth about the law of the Jews vs the covenant of the New Testament Christian Gentiles. Obviously, Paul had grown up studying the law. He was extremely educated in it and and his previous passion for the law had pushed him to persecute the early church so severely that he also carried a deep passion and understanding of the Jews and he desired so deeply for their salvation after his own conversion to Jesus. In Romans he is fighting hard to show them that the law that they grew up in had not been invalidated by salvation. In fact, the complete opposite is true. Paul explains that the law of God still exists because the law is God’s actual nature. God cannot turn from the law, nor can he ignore it’s violations. God Himself IS the law. Because of this, His complete and total justice is completely required at the full extent so God’s dismissal to any part of the law would be a lie and a contradiction against Himself. Paul acknowledges that our sin emphasizes these unmet requirements and puts a wall and an offense between us and God. Knowing this, Paul brings up the fact that not one of us is capable of fulfilling this law perfectly. Neither the Jews who grew up walking it out nor the Gentiles who were added into the kingdom of Jesus were ever going to be capable of fulfilling this. It is completely required but simply not possible because literally the only way to fulfill this law would be for us to become God ourselves. This is why the sacrifice of Jesus was necessary to fulfill this. As Jesus followers, we have this understanding that our sin was covered by Jesus in our inability to do so for ourselves, but that also comes with the tension of responsibility to pursue righteousness to the fullest degree in our lives. Not because we’re trying to earn something that was already given to us, but because our obedience to pursue righteousness honors the sacrifice that was given to us out of our inability. Jesus gave to us freely what we couldn’t pay for ourselves, and in return we have given ourselves to Him so that we can spend the rest of our lives discovering his nature so that we can be like Him. When we are able to see the beauty of the law as our pursuit to becoming more like Jesus, I think it removes the resentful and obligational attitude of hating ourselves for what we are not. There should always be a tension inside of us that understands that we will never make the mark, but our lives are a daily, living sacrifice of shedding the layers of our selfishness so that every day we peel off another layer and every day we look just a little bit more like Jesus.

In Romans 2 Paul exposes the tendency we all have to look at the sin of other people comparatively with ourselves while justifying or sometimes even doing the very same things in a different form at the same time. Paul was calling out the Jews because they were making accusations against the Gentiles because they didn’t follow the law and they were not circumcised. Paul was trying to show them that the Gentiles weren’t called under the law and didn’t need it, but that their commitment to following Jesus actually reflected the perfection of the law because they were instinctively following it in their hearts without them even being aware of what the law required. Paul was trying to persuade the Jews that in God there was absolutely no favoritism between those who grew up understanding what the law required as Jews, and those who were just becoming Jesus followers without any education or following of the written law. He also tried to show them that their focus on what others were or weren’t doing was only a distraction from themselves and added a hardness and a resistance to their own growth and change. When we look at others and compare them to ourselves it takes away the personal accountability of our own behavior and slides us into a comparison attitude of “well at least I don’t do that’. It’s nothing but a stupid mind trick spun up by the guilt and shame in our own hearts that wants to use other people as a distraction so we don’t have to deal with the ugly things we see in ourselves. It somehow appeases us when we see someone else’s struggle and we think “hey, I’m not so bad”. We somehow believe it gives ourselves a pass on our own issues because it’s a false sense of elevation we might feel even if it’s just temporary, that silences the voice of the terrible nagging shame in the back of our own minds for the things we are struggling with in our thought life, our attitude or acted out. When we feel out of control, we want to control someone or something else. When we feel shame and guilt for what we are struggling to change, we want to feel accepted, so we look outwardly at someone else. When we do that what we’re actually doing is just projecting our own issues onto other people and hoping it will make us feel better about our own junk. What I really pulled out of this today is that our walk can not be others-focused. We can’t look at anyone else in this world to determine where we stand with God. We are not responsible for anyone else is this world. We are only responsible for asking Holy Spirit to reveal to us the things inside our own hearts that he wants to deal with and allow him to work the change in us. Verse 16 reminds us that there will be a day that God judges what we have kept secret in our own hearts. This should absolutely motivate me to dig deep and ask God to reveal those things because when we get honest and real with Jesus he is so faithful and loving to show us not only what we need to see, but as Paul said in verse 4 “His kindness is intended to lead us to repentance.” There is so much freedom in asking the Holy Spirit to reveal our issues. When we really grasp the understand that there is actually nothing truly hidden from God, and he already sees it all in us and that he still loves us unconditionally because he made us in his in His image and values and loves us so deeply, this should give us the courage to lay it out there and ask him to help us walk out the change. Today this is my prayer. Holy Spirit, please reveal my heart to myself and show me what I need to see in my own heart. Show me the root of my feelings so that I can be healed and free! Remove from me the insecurities that keep me from knowing how much that you really love me!

In Proverbs 8 wisdom and understanding are personified voices speaking to us as if they are living beings speaking directly to us, and telling us all about their nature, their history and begging us to pay attention to what they have to say. Wisdom introduces some of her close friends by saying she “shares a home with shrewdness” and she introduces some of her other counterparts like “knowledge and discretion.” She shares her attributes that she gives “wealth to those who love me and filling their treasuries” and she reminds us that the Lord made her at the very beginning of creation. She was formed before the earth was and she stood beside God himself as he masterfully created every detail of the earth. In fact, verse 30 says “I was a skilled craftsman beside Him. I was His delight every day always rejoicing before Him.” So she urges us to pay attention to what she has to say because those who listen are blessed and happy but the one who ignores her will harm himself. What I really pulled from this beautiful passage today is that we have to remind ourselves that wisdom exists because God exists and it can’t be separated from God’s nature. We live in a culture that tries to dismiss certain attributes based on the fact that they are simply “old”/ That is the epitome of foolishness because Proverbs tells us that wisdom was established with the foundations of creation. If we follow after wisdom and her counterparts, we will naturally find favor because they are laws of nature whether you even acknowledge God or not. God implanted these things in the structure of the universe and they cannot be defied by our own thoughts or ways. This is why even ungodly people who happen to exercise some of wisdom’s attributes will be found in favor and blessing. They are established as part of the system and the system of wisdom doesn’t discriminate against anyone. As I read this today I challenge myself to pay attention to the ideas that present themselves to me and determine whether they fall into the categories of “wisdom, knowledge, discretion and shrewdness” so that I can pay attention to the root sources. I want to walk in these attributes not only for the sake of myself and my family but for the sake of those who are around me as well. When we walk in wisdom it affects everyone we encounter. When people encounter the effects of this wisdom, they are drawn to God.

Message/Application:

In Acts 28 this morning I couldn’t help but notice that when Paul and the shipwrecked crew of men landed in the unknown little island of Malta, the people immediately showed them extraordinary kindness. They warmed them by a fire and took them in from the rain and the cold, but they were definitely paying attention to details because obviously they didn’t know anything about these people that had landed on their island in all of that misfortune. A viper snake attached itself to Paul’s wrist and was hanging by his hand. Paul shook it off into the fire, but because the people saw the snake latch onto Paul they speculated that maybe he was a bad person. Maybe even a murderer! This seems like a crazy speculation to jump to based on circumstance but when they noticed that the snake didn’t harm Paul after watching him several hours they jumped to the complete opposite extreme and assumed he was a god. Obviously neither were true, but it ended up opening up some ministry opportunity. The father of the leading man of the island was sick in bed with a fever and an intestinal disease. Paul laid hands on him and healed him, and this led to other healing ministry on the island over a period of 3 months. When it came time for Paul and the crew to leave, the islanders provided a boat and provisions for them and they were well equipped to leave. They had helped each other during their time on the island and trust was built so this entire crew that had lost their whole boat was now departing with a new boat and all of the provisions they needed to travel. That is astounding! As I read this all I could think of are the families surrounding me right now that are going through things. I have been hearing of all kinds of things going on in the lives of people round me. At least 2 different cancer diagnosis this week, COVID sicknesses and other medical scares, job needs and family crisis. We are all going through things and people around us are going through things, so this is where we need to pull together in unity and support each other. What practical things do we have to help someone else with their crisis, and what spiritual resources do we have that others need. When we all reach out to each other everyone is cared for and needs are met both physically and spiritually. Nobody should be left alone in their storm and when we are all reaching out to someone else even in our own time of need we are able to meet each other’s needs and everyone is helped and encouraged according to what they need. I love that Paul and this shipwrecked crew met the needs of the people on the island and in return they left that island with every provision they could have possibly needed including a full boat!! That is so incredibly powerful!! Today I am left with the challenge. What do I have in my hand right at this moment that will help someone else get through their crisis today? Lord please reveal to me the needs that someone else has that I can fulfill today and make their load lighter. This is what brings unity and healing to the body of Christ and this is what the world should see us doing for each other that will finally capture their attention as to who God is!

Message/Application: Today the story that came up in my reading in Acts 27 today is one that has been on my mind for the past week or more as my family has been going through our own personal storm, and we have also been watching as others around us are also going through them as well. In this story, the Apostle Paul was being moved by ship with a whole lot of other prisoners. He had a great rapport with the centurion and was treated very kindly even though he was technically being handled as a prisoner. As time went on and they were switching ships and routes and the voyage had already become dangerous. Paul tried to warn the crew that he could foresee heavy losses ahead, but they listened to the captain and the owner of the ship only and ignored Paul’s warning of trouble ahead. Verse 13 tells us that “when a gentle south wind sprang up, they thought they had achieved their purpose” so they sailed along the shore of Crete. It was after that a “fierce wind” called “the northeaster” came crashing in and began to wreak havoc on everything. They battled for days on end losing cargo and even having to throw overboard their essential gear. Men in their fight and discouragement had stopped eating and nourishing themselves. Paul finally stood up and told them what we all like to hear when we can clearly see we chose wrong. “You should have listened to me” (Yeah thanks Paul). But he didn’t stop there. He encouraged them to eat and told them that he had a vision of an angel in the night telling him that he would not end this way and that he would indeed go before Caesar as planned. He told the men to take in food and prepare to run the ship aground. He told them that they would certainly lose the ship and all of it’s cargo, but not a single one of them were going to lose their lives. At some point there were a few sailors who tried to jump ship using a skiff and Paul stopped that as well by telling them that if they were all going to make it, none of them could bail ship. It was going to take everyone involved. After Paul spoke these words they were all encouraged, they ate food and then began throwing the grain overboard to lighten the load. When daylight came they didn’t recognize the land they were in but they planned to run the ship aground and found that when it came time to do it they had a sandbar to do it in (rather than dangerous rocky ground). This still completely damaged the ship (as Paul predicted) but every single one of them were alive. In fact, the soldiers had a plan to kill the prisoners on board so that no one could swim away and escape, but the centurion kept that from happening because he wanted to save Paul, so everyone made it to land safely (as Paul predicted as well). This is such a huge and heavy story. I feel like there are so many layers to peel back in this but what I really grabbed from this story today is the importance of sustaining our “nourishment” when the storm comes in and keeping everyone together. We can’t fight the fight alone!! The first thing we are tempted to do when we face storms is to start fighting out of our own understanding and our own experiences. I didn’t fully blame the crew for not listening to Paul when he threw out his warning. It makes sense that they listened to the captain and the ship owner because that was their area of expertise, but when things got out of control, they got worse quickly because they abandoned “nourishment” and nobody can think clearly this way. We lose all sense of reason and wisdom and we spin out of control without it. Our brains cannot function without it and our bodies don’t have the fight we need when we abandon nourishment. In the story we are talking about a physical nourishment which is absolutely real, but spiritually speaking we are also talking about a spiritual nourishment. The storm is not the time to stop reading the word and inquiring of God. We need that direction more than ever in the storm if we are going to make it out alive. I related to this story so much during my COVID fight because there was a period of about a week and a half that I lost my ability to nourish myself physically and I could see how devastating that was to my body trying to fight off the infection in my body. I didn’t have the brain power to function, and I literally felt like my brain powered itself down for a good few weeks because my body was just too weak to fight. I did some desperate praying as I lay there but I didn’t do any reading and this definitely took a toll on me by the time I reached the hospital. My mental state was not where it needed to be, and I found myself ill-equipped to handle the added stressors of being isolated from my family in the hospital. Things began to change however, when I cried out to God from my hospital bed, and I began to establish myself back to basics. I woke up with the sun every single morning and I prayed to establish my day and read my bible (on my phone) before anything else. Eventually I started writing out my devotionals again from my hospital room and reestablishing this pattern brought the nourishment I so desperately needed to fight for not only my breath, but for my sanity as I fought through the emotional isolation of being physically separated from my family. I feel such a strong parallel between this story and my experience even right down to other people involved. My friend was also in the hospital at the same time as me and my husband and other friends were battling COVID at home. People stayed connected to each other and and helped each other in whatever ways they could and are still doing this right now. The fight isn’t over for us as we all recover but we’re all doing it together. Nobody gets to bail this ship alone and if they try they will be in trouble doing so. We need God’s nourishment and we need each other!!

Message/Application:

Today as I read through Acts 26 I could see that Paul was appealing his case to King Agrippa, who was an expert in the Jewish law. Once again Paul was not appealing his case for the sake of himself so much as he was trying to win over the heart and understanding of King Agrippa to be able to see the gospel for what it was. He shared his personal story of growing up Jewish and how deeply he himself had opposed the church that was being called “The Way” until Jesus got ahold of his heart. King Agrippa seemed to be right along with Paul until Paul tried to boldly lay it out there for him and bluntly ask the King if he was ready to accept the gospel. He didn’t seem to have a real reason to reject the gospel and appeared to very uncomfortable being put on the spot so bluntly. In his frustration he yelled to Paul that his “all of his study had made him mad.” He got up after that and he acknowledged that nothing Paul had done was deserving of death or chains, and that he really could be released but Paul had already appealed to Caesar and needed to see that through. King Agrippa left that opportunity without accepting the bold offer of Paul to receive Jesus, but what I really took out of this is the importance that Paul laid it out there. Sometimes we are so careful in our presentation of the gospel that we get skittish and beat around the bush instead. We’re afraid to just lay it all out there. We have no idea what went down in the heart of King Agrippa later on down the line but Paul was able to rest with ease that he presented the gospel with all he had and he laid out the opportunity. This I all God has asked of any of us. We are not the Holy Spirit so we are not responsible for how people respond. We are responsible for laying it out on the line. Today this reading challenges me to stop being so careful and strategic and just lay it out there. People in the world need Jesus and even if they don’t respond today, they need to be given the opportunity.

Message/Application: Today my focus was on Proverbs 4:23 “Guard your heart above all else for it is the source of life.”  So often I hear this scripture directed toward a stance of protecting our hearts from the damage of other people (which is obviously important) but as I read this I see it with a weight of responsibility that ultimately I am in charge of what is allowed to enter my heart. There will always be external things thrown at us that yes, we have to throw out and discard, but we are all so capable of generating our own garbage that is just as deadly (and if not worse) because we may or may not even realize that it’s happening. When thoughts come we have to be diligent about confronting the source and asking God to unmask any sneaky ideas that don’t belong. We have to be willing to separate from the emotions of our thoughts and ask God to reveal truth and even more importantly, we have wo be willing to listen to God if he in fact tells us that the source behind our thoughts are a problem. When I was in the hospital the isolation of being away from my family took a really hard toll on me mentally. All I could think about was getting home so toward the end when I was SO close I felt an overwhelming weight of frustration that it was simply taking too long. I was emotionally anguished and because of this I started to get carried away in my thoughts. I told my family I was suspicious that the hospital was holding longer than they should because they were getting paid well for it by my insurance company. My family had to ground me down in my distress and guide me out of the crazy zone. In this time I was allowing my emotions to run the show and was not allowing wisdom to speak. I had to pray and ask God to sort out my thoughts and remove anything that was false or harmful to my thinking. God is so faithful to do that. I didn’t get to go home that day but God gave me the peace necessary to accept my situation and hope for the next day. I knew that he was faithful in everything that I had asked of him the whole time  and that he would not allow me to be mishandled (and neither would my family). I had to guard my heart from my own self and allow God to reveal and expose what was true and what was not. He does this with so much kindness too! As soon as I prayed this vulnerable prayer, I had a respiratory therapist and a then a nurse come into my room and tell me they were going to adjust my oxygen settings and do a walking test around the room to prepare me for the possibility of being released the next day. This was all the encouragement I needed to push through that last bit. Thank you Jesus for teaching me to guard my heart and allow you to work!!!