Monthly Archives: July 2025

The Romans Challenge: The New Life in Christ

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“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The New Life we have been given by Jesus is a gift like no other! We can leave behind the old way we used to live and experience God in a deep and intimate relationship.

No condemnation! Such beautiful words! We have been set free! When we understand just how much we have been forgiven, we become overwhelmed with just how much this freedom from sin and death means!

Not only are we forgiven of a debt of sin we could never repay, we are taken from the position of a spiritual pauper to being positioned in a relationship with the God! Our position of being “in Christ” means we have been united with Him, which is being attached to Him and connected to Him. We are a part of Him!

He has given us His Spirit to dwell within us so we can live in victory over sin! This is as we walk “according to the Spirit.” We are guided by Holy Spirit’s counsels and His influence. (Websters 1828) When we live our lives in agreement with the Spirit, united to Him, we will experience His “life and peace.”

What we were we are no more! We are forgiven, alive, free, victorious, at peace, full of the Spirit… In Christ!

The Romans Challenge: There Was Jesus

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Fifty-four years on planet earth gives you some perspective. I have a lot of different seasons to look back on. Truthfully, I have made some really bone headed decisions during each of those seasons…

Today when I was reading Romans 7 two phrases that Paul wrote stood out: “What a wretched man that I am!” And “ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Verses 24 and 25)

Chapter 7 is a lot of Paul writing about the struggles he had on the inside. he says, “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve found myself sitting in the same struggle.

BUT JESUS!

Jesus is our deliverer! He is the one who releases us from sin’s grip. He rescues us! When we finally get to the end of ourselves and surrender our lives completely, He keeps us! He holds onto us, he retains us in His possession. He preserves us from falling. He protects us, guards us, and sustains us.

Fifty- four years has taught me something, I cannot make it on my own. I ( on my own) cannot make a better version of me… I need Jesus! And Yes! “Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Jesus is waiting for us to turn to Him in each and every situation. He desires for us to recognize that we need help… we need Him! When we finally get to that point, we will see “There Was Jesus.”

The Romans Challenge: The Enemy Within Us

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“So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭7‬:‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬

We are at war! Our enemies — the devil, the world (the ungodly state or corruption on earth), and our flesh (our unrenewed, corrupt nature) want us to be destroyed!!

We are always going to face temptations because as Paul said, “evil is right there with me.” Our enemy is ruthless and relentless. He does not call a cease fire. He does not take vacations. He is always plotting and scheming against us.

Our greatest enemy is our flesh. This is because it desires to make the choices. It desires to dictate our behavior. And its influence is hard for us to see because it is within us. It would always have us to choose evil and to follow the way of the world and listen to the voice of Satan — the deceiver.

Our awareness of our enemy helps us to also be aware of our dependence upon God! We need Him!

If sin and our sinful nature are at war within us, Jesus has given us victory! We can live free in Him! 

“Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!...”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭7‬:‭25‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jesus has paid the price for our sin. He offers us forgiveness and cleansing from the sin that has held us captive. He has given us the Holy Spirit within us to empower us to receive and obey His Word.

Jesus has given us everything we need to live victoriously in this war against sin that wages within us!

The Romans Challenge: The Addictive Nature of Sin

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“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭7‬:‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

A few years ago, I was trapped in a sinful thought pattern. It was destroying me. I couldn’t understand what I was doing and I was doing the very thing that I did not want to do. I had absolutely no peace inside of my mind.

During that time, God led me to a Bible study group where I met a woman who I told my struggles to. I asked her if my thought pattern was sin, even though it was clearly listed in the Bible as sin. She asked me why I thought it was not a sin. Then I said words that have been etched in my mind ever since: “Because I cannot control it.”

Make no mistake about it… Sin is a taskmaster! Sin controls us. It is addictive in nature. Addiction/ Sin will rule over you. Whether it is a chemical addiction, an addiction to lust, an addiction to worrisome thoughts, an addiction to food, an addiction to your phone, etc… our choices to run to the sin over and over and over proves it’s addictive nature. I wholeheartedly agree with Paul when trapped in sin, “what I hate I do.”

BUT Jesus!

Jesus has the power to break the chains of addiction! He can set us free from sin! I can testify that Jesus has set me free and I now dwell with peace in my mind and in my heart.

The first step to freedom was for me to recognize that sin had a grip on me or as Paul writes, “it is sin living in me that does it.” When we see what the problem is — SIN — we are in a very good place! Because Jesus has provided the solution for sin — repentance. 

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭1‬:‭9‬ ‭NIV‬‬

We are assured that He will cleanse us from sin, and Holy Spirit will empower us to live free! Praise God!

The Romans Challenge: Holy, Righteous, and Good

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“So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭7‬:‭12‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The Law ( God’s commandments) are not the problem. Sin is!

God gave the Law to the Jewish people so they could get an understanding of His character. God also gave the Law so sin could be revealed. The Law was intended to point out to all of us how much we need a Savior.

For example the Ten Commandments:

These are good moral laws that we should abide by, but have we?

If we have broken just one, we have become a lawbreaker. We have sinned.

The problem is not the Law, that is “holy, righteous, and good.” The problem is us. We are all sinners desperately in need of a Savior, and our Good God has provided for that need — Jesus!

Thank You Father for sending Jesus! What we could not do on our own, You did for us. Long ago You gave us Your Law so that we could understand how much we need You to give us a new heart — a heart that desires to obey You! Thank You for Your gift of salvation that changes everything in our lives and helps us to walk after Your Way!

The Romans Challenge: New Way of the Spirit

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“But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭7‬:‭6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Today we start Romans 7.

God gave the law to us so we could see our need for something more. It taught us that we are unable to live completely righteous and holy on our own. Before Jesus entered our life, there was no power at all to keep us from living sinful. Our very nature, i.e. flesh, is bent toward sin.

When we come to Jesus that old self dies. We serve God, obeying Him and being devoted to Him, by the power of the Spirit! When we experience salvation, God’s Holy Spirit takes up residence within us. He begins to influence us in our decisions. He helps us!

We no longer are bound by the written law that God gave to the Jews in the Old Covenant. We experience the New Covenant where we are given a new heart that desires to obey God. The Holy Spirit works within us so we can live and “serve in the new way of the Spirit.”

Thank You God that You have provided all that we need to live for You! Holy Spirit, I ask you to help us to not only listen to You, but obey You! We know Your new way of the Spirit is freedom and life!

The Romans Challenge: The Trap of Sin

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“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. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭6‬:‭19‬-‭23‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Our flesh, unrenewed and corrupt nature, wants to be free to do what it wants, when and how it wants to. It does not desire to walk in obedience to God and His will. Simply put, it wants its own way. But when we choose our own way above God’s we are choosing sin.

There is no way around it. Sin is a trap of enslavement. There are consequences of sin… death. When we are in the middle of living our own way, it can be hard to see the consequences that we will reap in the future. Sin brings not only death, but guilt and shame.

Years ago one of my kids chose a “Chinese Finger Trap” as displayed below:

In a small way it is a reminder of what sin will do in our lives. We think it is harmless. We think we can play around with it, but when we try to get away from it and the harder we pull we cannot.

“Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.”

(Famous quote that I am unsure of its origin.)

We will do well to remember sin has its wages, what we are paid for what we do. Those wages are death. But God offers us a gift we do not deserve, something we could never earn on our own “eternal life.”

We can live free from sin’s entrapment, as we live totally surrendered, totally dependent, and totally obedient to God. True freedom is in being a “slave to God.”

The Romans Challenge: Abandoned…Offering Myself

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“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.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭6‬:‭19‬ ‭NIV‬

We were created by Love and for Love! God’s intent for us from the beginning of creation was a love relationship. In this relationship, we would love Him with all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul, and all of our strength. We were created for worship of Him, or love expressed to Him. We were meant to “offer ourselves” to Him over and over every moment of every day. In return, we would receive from Him everything we ever needed — love, goodness, joy, etc. We were designed by Him to be “slaves to righteousness.’

A slave is subject to the will of another. They have no will of their own. They are wholly under the control of another. (Webster’s 1828) They are abandoned to the one they have given themselves to.

Because we were born into a fallen world, we have not lived as we were designed. Instead we have lived as “slaves to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness.” We willingly gave ourselves over to follow its leading. Jesus came to provide the way of freedom in Him!

Jesus came to break the power of sin. Once again, through relationship with God we are able to “offer ourselves” to Him presenting ourselves as an act of worship — extravagant love and extremes submission. (Webster’s 1828)

How do we experience this? Simply come… Tell Him He can have all of you! Tell Him that you desire to obey Him and to experience Him and His love.

No matter what we will choose to abandon ourselves or give ourselves to something! Choose surrender to Jesus! His ways are best! His way is life!

The Romans Challenge: Alive!

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“In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭6‬:‭11‬ ‭NIV‬

Alive — Regenerated, Renovated Heart, Born Again! (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary)

There is beauty in living “alive.” The only way to really understand this statement is to experience it. When you know the depths of what you are without Jesus and then experience Him, you know the death, darkness, and destruction you dwelled in. But thank God that we can live “alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

You and I were dead. There was nothing good in us. BUT GOD! He has taken what was completely broken, without hope… dead. And He has breathed His life into us, regenerated. He has renovated our hearts because He is the ultimate “Fixer Upper.” He takes the completely ruined by sin heart and makes it new! We are born again into a New Life! We are ALIVE!

Being fully alive in Christ is something you have to experience to understand at all. It is foreign to us. He breathes life into us so we can KNOW what His life is like: It is joy. It is peace. It is love. It is mercy. It is goodness. It is all these things and more.

The beauty of the New Life of being “alive to God” is the very thing that God desires for us! He wants us to live attached to Him receiving His life in every circumstance and situation. This starts with salvation, where we enter our relationship with God. It continues as we live day in and day out connected to Him in relationship!

We need to come to Him each and every moment of each and every day so we can truly experience living “alive to God!”

The Romans Challenge: Crucified With Him

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“For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭6‬:‭6‬ ‭NIV‬

You and I have a “flesh.” This “flesh” is our human nature. It is what we inherited from Adam and Eve when they chose to sin in the Garden. This “flesh” is consumed with self. It wants what it wants when and how it wants it. There is no consideration for God in our flesh. There is no desire to do what is right or to obey what God says. When we act selfishly and with no thought of God and His desires, we are acting according to our flesh.

What we were, before we experienced salvation through Jesus, ( or being born again) was our “old self.” This person was ruled by the flesh. The “old self” made all of its choices according to the desires of our old sinful human nature. All of these choices brought only death, darkness, and destruction into our lives. This sin separated us from God and His true life that He wants us to experience. Sin enslaved us!

Jesus has broken the chains of sin. What we once were has been “crucified with him (Jesus) so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with…” In Jesus, we are not what we were before. The “old self” has died. We have “been set free from sin.”

The Old Janet has been crucified with Christ. The New Janet is not ruled by sin! I am no longer a slave to the sin. I am free! If you are in Jesus, you can declare the same!

Let’s celebrate our freedom in Jesus, and experience it day in and day out!