The Everyday Prayer

Re:Verse passage – Romans 3:21-31 (day six)

“Can we boast…that we have done anything to be accepted by God?” Romans 3:27

We are remarkably skilled at finding reasons to place ourselves above one another. We boast in accomplishments, education, morality, politics, religious knowledge, and even our suffering. Whatever distinguishes us can become evidence that we are wiser, stronger, or more deserving than someone else.

Paul dismantles every claim to superiority: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Jew and Gentile, religious insider and outsider, we have all failed to reflect God’s goodness, and all depend upon his mercy.

But grace does not leave us with nothing to celebrate. It redirects our boasting. Paul writes in Galatians 6:14, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We did not rescue ourselves. God acted through Jesus to redeem us from sin and death and welcome us into his family.

Boasting in ourselves divides us because it requires comparison. Boasting in Jesus unites us around the same Redeemer.

We have nothing to boast about over one another, but everything to boast about together in Jesus.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 3:21-31 (day five)

It seems like an easy question to answer. Because we have placed our faith in Jesus, the law really shouldn’t matter any more to us, right?  At first glance the answer is yes. The righteousness of God has been given apart from the law, 3:21. Yet Paul’s answer is a resounding NO (may it never be). The law must always be kept. Death- penalty if law not kept. Life- promise if law is kept. The gospel declares that when we put our faith in Jesus, the law of God still has its place in the life of the believer. It humbles us in recognizing that we can never completely keep it (3:23). The righteousness from His perfect life and obedience becomes ours. And it also holds a special place of encouragement when we realize that the death demanded for failing to keep the law is paid for us by Jesus’ death on the cross. He takes our death. He gives His life. The law must always be kept both in penalty and promise. And in Christ, it is, and both are!!  Righteousness and Redemption, manifested and displayed.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 3:21-31 (day four)

Last Sunday, we had a conversation in Sunday School about the nature of following Jesus for the long haul. You would think that the more you walk with Christ, the less sin you have to repent for. That over time, you would eventually have fewer and fewer weeds of sin to pull up in your life. But the opposite is true. The more you walk with Christ, the more you realize how sinful you truly are, and how far you have fallen from the standard of God’s glory. As we continue to walk with Christ, we keep finding new areas of life, new rooms in the house of our heart where we need to repent and invite the Lord to change us. The longer we stand in the light of Christ, more parts of our character and our flesh are illuminated, and we realize how desperately we need Jesus. We realize how incapable we are of fulfilling the law and having righteousness of our own. This realization isn’t meant to depress us, it’s simply meant to make us increasingly grateful for the sacrifice and work of Jesus. The longer we walk with Christ, the more we realize our need for him and the more grateful we are that he satisfies our every need.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 3:21-31 (day three)

 ²⁴Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins.

We often tend to add to what is needed for salvation. Usually, this comes in as a subconscious thought or feeling within ourselves because “measuring” oneself is so intrinsic to everything we do. “Are we as good as that person?” Or “I don’t do the terrible things that person does!” Maybe you think, “I need to be at church today because I have had a rough few days of doing the wrong things.”

Amazingly (and thankfully), that is not how God operates. We are not good enough and we never, ever will be. We cannot do enough right things or say enough right things or act good enough to even remotely get close to God. I love how the NLT translation lays this out for us. God freely makes us right with Him through Christ Jesus taking our penalty for sin. Nothing more needs to be added. Nothing more can be done other than accepting Him and following Him. When I am reminded of this, it is like a weight off my shoulders. I am not enough, but Jesus is. I hope that reminder frees you today!

Re:Verse passage – Romans 3:21-31 (day two)

Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. v. 27

Have you ever been in a group where a leader asks a question and someone almost trips over themselves to answer? It becomes less about knowing the answer and more about showing off. There is a natural tendency in most of us to demonstrate a kind of superiority over others by virtue of experience or knowledge. Often our hope is that this will curry favor with the leader, or somehow raise our worth in the eyes of the others in the group. The efficacy of this trait is debatable, but scripture leaves no room for doubt about this characteristic in our faith walk.

We bring nothing worthy of righteousness. If we did, it would nullify the work of Christ and make his death meaningless. Even the ‘best’ of us must come to the realization that without the gift of God’s grace, we completely fall short. This in no way should discourage you. The exhausting path you are on to try and prove your worth can be set aside for the all-sufficient love of Christ on the cross. Your value is in and through Jesus, not in addition to him. Stop trying to measure up. Surrender and be filled with the measure of grace.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 2:5-16 (day seven)

For there is no partiality with God. Romans 2:11

Partiality translates “to lift the face.” It comes from Old Testament imagery where those who were accused of a crime were not allowed to look at the face of the judge so that the judge did not have any chance for showing bias.

God does not look at what we have done; He looks at our heart.

We may not be strict observers of the Law like the Jewish Christians Paul was writing to in Rome, but we have people who are strictly checking off a list of things they believe they are supposed to do in order to be in right standing before God. He is not looking up how many times you were at church, if you read your Bible every day, or how much you are tithing. He wants those things to be products of your relationship with Him, not the payment for His relationship. When we treat this check list like the finish line of our walk instead of the starting line, we err towards the very legalism Paul was talking about. When the check list becomes the starting line, we will begin to see that there is so much more to our walk than what we could ever show on the outside, and God will lead us to places we never thought were possible.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 2:5-16 (day six)

⁴ Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin? Romans 2:4

Clearly, God’s kindness does not mean sin is unimportant or that God overlooks what destroys life.  It means God has not given up on us. His patience creates room for us to turn around and come home.

The trouble is that religious people can receive God’s patience while withholding it from others. We magnify their failures, minimize our own, and use judgment to reassure ourselves of our goodness. Paul removes that illusion. Gentile and Jew, outsider and insider, none of us possesses moral or religious immunity. All of us depend upon God’s mercy.

Unity—what they really needed in the churches in Rome— begins when our shared need dismantles our superiority and turns us together toward God’s mercy. It grows when the kindness we have received becomes the kindness we extend.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 2:5-16 (day five) Works matter. This is one of the main truths that Paul is declaring. Does that make us cringe or nervous? Didn’t he just announce a few verses earlier that we are saved apart from the law and apart from anything we can do?  How do these go together?  Faith and works?  One proves there is salvation and new life, while the other provides salvation and new life. Works serve only to prove salvation and new life, while faith in God alone, serves to provide salvation and new life. Both are good and meaningful when in the right priority and perspective. And back in verse four, it is the kindness of God that reveals the exact place and priority of faith and works that we might repent and grow closer to God and deeper in saving faith. Read Psalm 62 for reference. Paul quotes it in our Re:verse text this week.

Re:Verse passage – Romans 2:5-16 (day four)

Paul’s writing really flies in the face of today’s preferred way of thinking. In a world that prefers relativism and pluralism (saying things like “I follow my truth and you follow your truth,” or “there are many ways to the same endpoint”), Paul makes it clear: there is good, and there is bad, there is righteousness, and there is unrighteousness, there is one way to the Father, not many. Paul writes this to an audience in Rome that desperately needs to hear this, and we equally need this message today.

Paul makes it clear that there are only two paths in life – you can live God’s way, which includes putting your faith in Christ and allowing your heart and actions to be shaped by his character, or you can stubbornly deny God, and live according to your flesh. This is true of everyone, whether they were born into a Jewish family and felt a sense of spiritual superiority (like Paul used to), or if they had never heard God‘s law before. Paul makes it clear that there is no other criteria for eternal life apart from hearing the gospel and responding to it in faith. A family name does not qualify you, and a lack of knowledge of the law doesn’t disqualify you – the fork in the road comes with how we respond to the gospel of Christ.

How might we as believers preach this message in love to the world in which we live?