I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Romans 8-10

Some of what Paul writes in today’s passage is relatively easy to understand and some of it is extremely difficult to understand.  We easily understand that if we allow ourselves to think about sinful things we will find ourselves doing those things, while if we allow the Holy Spirit to control our thoughts and think about godly things we will do godly things.  Following up on that is the idea that if we allow the Holy Spirit to do so, He will help us to do God’s will. (The part about helping us pray syncs right up with my comments I made the other day about needing to pray more).  We can even easily understand that nothing, no power, thing, or being, can make it so that God does not love us.  We will experience God’s love whether we wish to or not.  For those of us who desire the experience of God’s love there can be no greater comfort than to realize that God is looking out for our best interests.

Which brings us to the things which are more difficult to understand.  Elsewhere Paul speaks about the need to choose to do God’s will.  Even at the beginning of this passage he writes that we must not allow our sinful nature to control us.  Yet he also writes that we can neither choose nor work to receive God’s mercy; that God chooses to whom He will show mercy and to whom He will not.  So, what does this mean?  There may be more to it than this, but at the very least, it means that I cannot consider myself better than any other person.  Being a follower of Christ does not make me better than someone who is not, not even the vilest sinner I can imagine.  I am not a better person than Adolf Hitler was, than Josef Stalin was, than the murdering rapist just caught by the police.  I have not done those evil, terrible things because of God’s grace and mercy, not because I am somehow better than those people.  Yet, to fully experience the joy which God has in mind for me I must choose to embrace His love and allow it to transform me.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Romans 4-7

Paul tells us that Abraham’s faith in God’s promise to him never wavered.  Yet, Paul was aware that Abraham took Hagar as a concubine in order to have a son by her.  This tells us that God does not count our moments of human weakness against us.  Or, perhaps it tells us that Abraham came to believe that he needed to change his life’s course in order for God’s promise to be fulfilled.  In any case, we know that God told Abraham that His promise would be fulfilled through a son which Abraham would have with Sarah, and that is indeed what happened.  My point being that even when we make mistakes in following God’s plan for us, if we maintain our faith, God will honor His promises.  From a human point of view, we would say that Abraham’s faith had wavered, but Paul tells us that from God’s point of view it did not.

Perhaps Paul gives me the greatest hope towards the end of chapter seven in verse nineteen when he says, “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.”  Then he provides the answer by telling us that God, through Jesus Christ, will free us from this situation.  I know that all too often I do what is wrong and do not do what is good, but I have faith that the Holy Spirit will transform me in God’s time.   This passage gives me hope.  If God considered Abraham’s faith to have never wavered, and if Paul found himself doing what was wrong, then I can know that even I can be changed by the Holy Spirit.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Romans 1-3

I am not going to try to hit all of the points of importance in this passage.  In fact the first thing the Spirit reminded me of from this passage was not one of the things Paul was trying to communicate here.  When I read how Paul prayed fro the Believers in Rome I was reminded that I do not pray as I should, nor as much as I should.  It was a reminder for me to once again seek the Holy Spirit’s aid in improving my prayer life.  Paul writes here of praying day and night, I am lucky to pray a few minutes each day.

Paul expounds here on a point which Jesus made.  Anyone who seeks God will find God because the Universe which God created reveals His nature to anyone who truly looks.  As a result of this fact, much of the wickedness in the world comes about from people attempting to convince themselves that God is not what the Universe shows them that He truly is.  Those of us who acknowledge God need to be careful not to think that doing so makes us better than those who refuse to do so.  The fact of the matter is that even we who acknowledge God are guilty of doing wrong, which means we are no better than those who deny His existence.  In fact, no one is able to truly do what is right unless God’s Spirit transforms them.  We can only be justified before God by placing our faith in Christ.  This is where the whole thing gets very complicated.  The fact that we can only be justified, and are justified, through faith does not mean that it is acceptable to continue to do that which we know is wrong.  Our faith should tell us that doing what is wrong is self-destructive.  Even when we do not know how it can work out, our faith tells us that doing what is wrong reduces the amount of joy in our lives while doing what is right increases that joy.  I know this to be true, yet I still struggle with sin.  Which brings me back to my point from the first paragraph: I need to seek for the Holy Spirit to transform me into someone who prays as, and as much as, I know that I ought.