The Everyday Prayer

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?

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

⁶He will render to each one according to his works:

Is Paul contradicting himself here? Just a few verses ago in chapter one, Paul lays out that one is saved by faith alone, apart from the law and from works. Yet, here, he states that God will judge (render to) us based on our “works.” Romans 2:6 is almost a word-for-word quote from Psalm 62:12. What David was talking about in Psalm 62 is a judgment of people based on the choices they make between (essentially) following God or not following God by rejecting His chosen king. In his letter to the Romans, Paul is using that same idea to back up his statement that we are saved through faith alone. We are faced with a choice of following God or not following Him. The way we choose to not follow Him is to reject Jesus as King in our lives.

Now, are our actions (works) a good thing? Yes! Our works are the fruit of following the Lord and accepting Jesus as King. In following Him, our striving should be to be more like Him, producing the kind of fruit and actions that please Him and line up with the Gospel. So, ponder this today: Is Jesus the King of your life? Do your words and actions (works) reveal to others that He is, in fact, the King?

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

to those who by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; ⁸ but to those who are selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. v. 7-8

This isn’t a passage about your works and earning your salvation; rather it is about your focus. Those who have allowed the gospel to penetrate their hearts have evidence of Christ in everything they do. It doesn’t make them perfect, but the work of the gospel begins to re-focus how we live. To those who refuse to allow this message to change them, it is also evident. Our focus determines our path. When we fix our eyes on Jesus, our lives should calibrate towards his. Those things which cause turmoil, struggle, or hurt should be laid at his feet and viewed in the light of the cross. Even if they are not removed from your path, how you deal with them is changed.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, Look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.