Category Archives: God

The Romans Challenge: Living Under the Reign of Grace

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“so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬

(This Week is Romans 5)

Before Jesus comes into our lives, all you and I will truly ever know is the death, the darkness, and the destruction of sin. On our own, we are helpless to overcome sin’s reign – its power and its influence. The struggle is so real. We know the good we should be doing, but we choose to do otherwise… this is sin. (James 4:17) Then the consequences we see of our wrong choices have a ripple effect. This influences even more wrong choices. Sin’s grip grows and grows. It is a merciless tyrant over our lives.

This is what makes the grace of Jesus so beautiful. Even though we have failed time after time after time. He comes with His love and favor. He has provided a way for the reign of sin to be broken over our lives — The Cross. Jesus’s death, burial and resurrection provides the way for grace to reign — have power and influence over us. Jesus forgives us our sins and gives us His righteousness. What we have done in the past no longer has power over us. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we receive the Holy Spirit living in us. He empowers us to live our lives where the rule of Grace grows and grows.

This is why it is so important that we spend time coming to know God better through His Word. The more we know Him, the more we will understand His love, and in turn we will love Him. The more we love Him, the more we will obey Him. The more we obey Him, the more we will experience His blessings. Simply put, the closer we are to Jesus, the more we will experience His freedom!

You and I weren’t meant to be living our lives subjected to the reign of sin! We were meant for the reign of grace and the true life we will experience through Jesus our Lord!

The Romans Challenge — Reign in Life

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“For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭17‬ ‭NIV‬‬

(Today we read Romans 5.)

The Garden of Eden was a happy place! Imagine being able to walk face to face with God — who is complete peace, complete joy, complete love, complete goodness, etc. There wasn’t any pain, sadness, or sorrow. Happiness, all the agreeable sensations from enjoying all of God’s goodness was all Adam and Eve experienced 24/7. But then they CHOSE to sin.

Death entered the picture. They were separated from that beautifully happy i.e. blessed relationship with God. From that moment on “death reigned.” The divine life they had experienced was just a memory. It remained that way until Jesus came.

Jesus is God’s “provision of grace.” (Or divine favor) His righteousness becomes ours when we place our trust in Him and receive Him as our Savior. Jesus came to restore what was lost in the Garden of Eden, and He has come to us to restore what was lost in our lives!

Sin only brings death to us! It separates us from what we were created for, living in relationship with God — being fully alive. We can possess the Happiness of Heaven through the new life that Jesus gives to us. This is what it is to “reign in life” through Jesus.

The more we experience God in close and intimate relationship, the more we will experience Him in our lives. His complete peace, His complete joy, His complete love, His complete goodness, etc. will be what we experience over and over again. Because God is who He says He is, and He wants us to KNOW Him. This knowing is to experience Him day in and day out.

Jesus told us when He walked on earth that we would experience troubles as we live on earth. The effects of sin are still with us… But we could take courage, because He has overcome the world! (John 16:33)

To reign is to “live victoriously” (Webster 1828 Dictionary). We can “reign in life (live victoriously), through the one man, Jesus Christ. He has given us all we need to live victoriously. His Holy Spirit living in us, empowers us and produces in us the fruit of a victorious life — peace, love, joy, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. (Galatians 5:22)

The secret to this life of victory is close relationship to God. Just like Adam and Eve experienced before they sinned, we are to walk and talk with God. Jesus provided the way for our relationship to be restored. Once again we can experience the “happiness of the garden”, but now that happiness goes with us wherever we go because the Holy Spirit is living inside of us!

The Romans Challenge: God Demonstrates His Love

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“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Today is Romans 5.

I am always amazed at the love of God. It is beyond my human comprehension. I have done absolutely nothing to deserve His love, but He pours it out on me in abundance.

Romans 5:8 is one of my favorite verses in Romans. It tells us that when we were against God, deeply trapped within our sins, Jesus died for us. This is God’s greatest demonstration of His love.

I know in my own life that I was in a mess made by my own choices. I was unable to free myself from sins grip. BUT JESUS!

Within my own abilities, I would probably find it hard to die for a good person, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t entertain the thoughts of dying for someone who was evil. Especially if that person had chosen to live as an enemy of me. Yet, Jesus did just that!

I have heard it said that our choices to sin, in reality, is “cosmic treason against God.” Our choice to sin is a deliberate choice against Him. Yet even though we have lived our lives chasing after sinful ways, Jesus provided the way for us to be free!

Jesus demonstrated God’s love for His rebellious children — sinners… He died for us!

Thank You Jesus for Your amazing love!

The Romans Challenge: Reconciled!

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“For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Reconciled- “Brought into friendship from a state of disagreement or enmity” (Webster’s 1828)

Today is Romans 5!

We were created for connection to God! Relationship is connection. Back in the Garden of Eden, God’s intent for mankind was to have relationship. When Adam and Eve chose to sin, separation from God came. This separation is all we have really known and understood in our lives. It is the norm. But God desires for us to experience something radically different than that. He wants us to be united to Him in a close and intimate relationship!

This is why Jesus came. His death, burial and resurrection provides the way for us to experience His salvation from sin. When we accept Him as our Savior, we are justified by His blood. His blood cleanses us from the sin that has separated us from God. Then we experience the most beautiful thing — reconciliation. We are brought back into the relationship that God originally desired for us to have way back at the beginning, in the Garden of Eden.

This relationship we now have with God is closely connected to Him. He gives us the Holy Spirit to live inside of us. We now live our lives literally walking and talking with God.

We go from being enemies of God, pursuing sin, to a friend of God, pursuing Him and His righteousness! We can now live our lives reconciled to God!

The Romans Challenge: Rejoice in Hope

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“Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭5‬:‭2‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Today we start Romans 5!

Hope is the confident expectation of good.

Glory is the sum of all God’s characteristics. It is all of His perfections or excellence.

When we come to know God for who He is and all of His greatness, we know that we will experience good from Him. No matter what our circumstances are we know God is at work for our good. This is because He is completely good and He is completely love. All this love and goodness is poured out upon us.

When life is hard, we have reason to rejoice! Because whatever hardship that God has allowed into our lives is working in us perseverance, character, and hope. More than all of this, we will experience God’s love, which is defined as His will to good for us!

When we trust God in impossible circumstances, we will find out that He is faithful! He never leaves us or abandons us. Each and every circumstance will deepen our understanding of God and grow our relationship with Him, if we will determine that our eyes will be fixed on Him.

We will “rejoice in hope!” We have hope that He is working here and now on our behalf. Romans 8:28 says He is working all things for our good.

We also have hope that when all is said and done, we will experience the ultimate good, eternity with Him!

Rejoice! No matter what God is for us!

The Romans Challenge: Power To Do What is Promised

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“Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭4‬:‭20‬-‭21‬ ‭NIV‬‬

There’s a saying, “God said it. I believe it. That settles it.” Abraham modeled that kind of faith to us.

When God spoke His great promise of blessing through Abraham’s offspring, there was a problem… Abraham and his wife could not have children. A miracle was needed!

Abraham did not know how God would do what He promise, but “Against all hope” he believed. What looked like a situation where no good could come, Abraham put his confidence in God and what God said. He knew how things looked on the outside, but he was “fully persuaded” that God could do anything.

Sin has put you and I in a hopeless situation. In ourselves, there is no solution for the brokenness in our own lives. BUT JESUS! When we place our faith in Him, what was dead inside of us comes to life, and hope comes into hopelessness. We receive God’s righteousness — right standing with God. We are “fully persuaded” just like Abraham, that God can do anything in our lives!

Salvation is just the beginning of all the good that God wants to do in us as we have faith in Him! We can trust in God and fully rely on what He has promised us in His Word!

The Romans Challenge: Heir of the World

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“It was not through the law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭4‬:‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Today is Romans 4.

I live in the country. Starry nights here are beautiful! Sometimes, at night, I go out and stand in my front yard and just gaze at the sky. The stars are everywhere. Then I think of the promise that God made to Abraham. “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.” (Genesis 26:4) How amazing it is to me that one of those stars represents me.

Long ago, God came to Abraham and gave Him a promise. Abraham believed what God said. It was just that simple. It was Abraham’s faith in God that made him righteous. This changed the trajectory of our world. God worked throughout time and history to fulfill this promise of an inheritance that was so much bigger than a mere man, who God came to all those thousands of years ago. Abraham was directly in the lineage of Jesus, and Jesus came for the world that God promised to Abraham. 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
‭‭John‬ ‭3‬:‭16‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Jewish or non Jewish, Circumcised or uncircumcised, none of this matters. When we believe in Jesus, we can be confident that one of those stars we see lit in our skies at night was meant for us. The promise that God gave Abraham is true! God wanted to bless the world through Abraham’s faith!

God still wants to bless the world not only through Abraham’s faith, but through ours. When we believe God and receive the salvation He offers through Jesus, we are given His righteousness. It comes just as it did to Abraham, through faith. We are His! We have entered into relationship with God Himself.

In this relationship, we come to know God and in turn we make Him known to those around us. That way others can look up at the night sky, as Abraham did, and realize God’s promise is true, “God lit up that star for me.”

The Romans Challenge: Happy

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““Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.””
‭‭Romans‬ ‭4‬:‭7‬-‭8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Today is Romans 4.

Blessed is also Happy in the Greek!

Happy- “Being in the enjoyment of agreeable sensations from the possession of good” (Webster’s 1828)

God has done great things for us! When we come to Jesus accepting His salvation, our sins are forgiven and covered. God does not count our sins against us any more!

The punishment we deserve we do not receive. Jesus took that upon Himself. We are given a blessed life— the life that Jesus gives us. We possess His goodness. We know that He is good to us and all that He does is good. Even when we experience troubles, we can experience His happiness.

We are blessed! We are loved by the Happy God!

An Oldie but a goody!

The Romans Challenge: Happy

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““Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.””
‭‭Romans‬ ‭4‬:‭7‬-‭8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Today is Romans 4.

Blessed is also Happy in the Greek!

Happy- “Being in the enjoyment of agreeable sensations from the possession of good” (Webster’s 1828)

God has done great things for us! When we come to Jesus accepting His salvation, our sins are forgiven and covered. God does not count our sins against us any more!

The punishment we deserve we do not receive. Jesus took that upon Himself. We are given a blessed life— the life of Jesus. We possess His goodness. We know that He is good to us and all that He does is good. Even when we experience troubles, we can experience His happiness.

We are blessed! We are loved by the Happy God!

An Oldie but a goody!

The Romans Challenge: Believe God

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“What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.””
‭‭Romans‬ ‭4‬:‭3‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Today is Romans 4.

Abraham was living an ordinary life. He was working his job and living close to his family. Then one day God spoke to Him. He told Him to “Go.” God then spoke to him a promise.

Abraham did something extraordinary. He believed! He believed the Word of God. He believed the Promises were true. Out of that belief, he acted — he obeyed. When Abraham believed God “credited to him as righteousness.” Righteousness is “Purity of heart and rectitude of life; conformity of heart and life to the divine law.” (Webster’s 1828 Dictionary) It is right standing with God.

When Abraham listened to what God was saying and believed God. He was in right standing with God. He entered a relationship with God that came through his faith.

It wasn’t all the good things that Abraham did that established this relationship of right standing with God. It was when he simply believed.

God blessed Abraham for his faith and God made him a blessing. Many years later, Jesus was born out of his lineage. This alone was a miracle for a man whose wife had been unable to have a child.

God is speaking to us today. He desires for us to take Him at His Word and believe what He says. Jesus came as the living Word (expression of God) that proclaims to us God’s desire for relationship. We too can believe. Our belief in Jesus and what He did for us on the cross and then raising from the dead places us in right standing. It makes us righteous.

Relationship with God does not start with our good deeds. It starts with our faith in His Word that we hear.

May it be said of us, “She believed God!”