The Busy and Powerful Romans

I'm working my way through the New Testament of the Bible. This month, I've just finished Paul's letter to the Romans. I didn't write much about it on here, but I've certainly pulled some significant truth from this scripture. Even now as I sit, I continue to be challenged. These words are growing and stretching me.

As a habit - I tend to write things in the margins of my Bible. Sometimes words. Sometimes complete phrases. Tonight as I finished, I flipped through the pages of Romans, and wrote these phrases below:

• We received in Jesus: (1) A precious gift of life, and (2) The urgent task of passing it on to others
• Paul "Thanks" God ... often. He also prays all the time - authoritatively.
• We're all in this together - "You have as much to give to me as I do to you."
• Paul said he was proud to proclaim God's message. I wonder how often I have been ashamed to stand up for Jesus
• Our sin has confused us. We don't know how to be human. We don't understand sexuality. We understand lust better than love.
• Everytime you criticise someone, you condemn yourself. Judgmental criticism of others is a way of escaping detection in your own crimes. God sees right through.
• God is kind, but He's not soft.
• If you sin without knowing what you're doing, God takes that into account. But if you sin knowing full well what you're doing, that's a different story entirely
• If you were brought up in religion, don't assume you can lean back into the arms of your religion and take it easy. Paul gives a special word to the "religious" who think we "have it all together".
• God is faithful - even when we're not
• Paul knew these were holy scriptures, even as he wrote them
• Evil vs. Good - our evil doesn't throw God off course. He is able to underline His goodness even in the midst of our evil
• Not serving others is a sin
• No one is righteous
• His righteousness, not our righteousness.
• God does not respond to what we do, we respond to what God does. Let him set the pace
• Jesus' death does not cancel the Jewish law, it fulfills it
• Trust, not work is key.
• God blesses even the unsaved.
• TRUST brings us into ultimate reality with Christ
• When it's SIN vs. GRACE - grace wins hands down.
• We were dead to sin, now we're alive to God.
• We must throw ourselves wholeheartedly and full-time into God's way of doing things.
• The Gospel message is a FREEDOM message
• Paul admits his own sin struggle - coveting. He acknowledges his turn from the OLD way and into his NEW free way.
• Sin hides within the law - Satan can twist even the things intended for good.
• Brokeness brings us to the answer - not our own strength
• Die to self
• Don't know what to pray? Fine! God can make prayers out of our wordless sighs, and aching groans.
• God calls us by name, not by number
• Nothing can separate God's love from us
• Paul would give up his Salvation for the unbelievers
• The religious Jews mentioned in Chapter 9 had strong worship - but no Jesus
• God - do you know what you're doing? Yes, indeed He does.
• Don't have a borrowed faith
• Make life on God's terms
• Salvation: Our Response
• Not everyone is ready: Listen, then Trust.
• There will be a loyal minority
• Again - on God's terms
• Paul - an evangeslit (outward) - looked inward and called the "insiders" to WAKE UP!
• Abiding is key - if the primary root of the tree is holy, there's bound to be some holy fruit
• God's door is open to all
• Offer ourselves as living sacrafices
• Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it
• Get the best of evil by doing good
• Paul affirms military and police
• When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is LOVE
• Don't run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other
• Don't bicker over denominations. None of us are permitted to insist on our own way in these matters. It's God we are answerable to - not each other
• Help the weak-faithed.
• Maturity will develop unity - then we'll be a choir - not our voices only
• Paul went to the places where Jesus was not yet known
• Paul asked for prayer: (1) That he would be delivered from the lion's den of unbelievers (2) That the believers would accept his gifts
• Christians were "famous for hospitality" - are we still?
• Paul served with women: Phoebe, Priscilla, Aquila, Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa - to name a few

All of our praise rises to the One who is strong enough to make you strong, exactly as preached in Jesus Christ, precisely as revealed in the mystery kept secret for so long but now an open book through the prophetic Scriptures. All the nations of the world can now know the truth and be brought into obedient belief, carrying out the orders of God, who got all this started, down to the very last letter. All our praise is focused through Jesus on this incomparably wise God! Yes! (16:25-26)