Romans 9

Not everything in the Bible is something that we can completely understand. We are the creation of an infinite being, so we are limited by our position in the universe. Our perspective gets in the way. The question that Paul is wrestling with in the passage, though, is really centered on why the Jews are not the main target of his ministry. The Jews are supposed to be the chosen people, so why is Paul preaching to the Gentiles.

Paul asserts that the chosen people has little do with the physical lineage of anyone, and more to do with God's promises. God promised to bless Abrahams' descendants through Isaac, and the fact of that is that He didn't mean, literally, all of the physical descendants. God meant that He was going to bless those that followed from His promise and were born in faith.

So the natural question is, why not bless the others? To which the only sensible answer is, what position are we in to question God? God created each of us for a purpose, and throughout the Bible He has chosen to use people to show His glory. What if He chose that some would be saved to show His mercy and others would not to show His justice? I don't know that He did or didn't do that, the Bible seems to indicate both that He did and that He didn't and my brain can't really reconcile the two. The point, though, is that it doesn't matter.

God saved me and I praise Him for that. God commands me to share His gospel with others, and I try to be obedient in that. That's really all that mattes.

Romans 8

Because we were unable to fulfill the Law, Christ died for us. Even though we were sinners, Christ died for us. If God was willing to do this, give up His Son, then what would He not do for us? Paul hopes for us to understand that we are not slaves to Law and to our sinful nature. If we choose to accept Christ and live according to the Spirit we will still sin because we are human, but we will also realize the freedom and peace that comes from being a child of God.

We are not yet redeemed, that is our hope. And we wait for that day of redemption when we can be truly revealed as sons of God and heirs alongside Christ. Until then, we are weak and we must strive to allow the Spirit to drive us and not our sinful nature. The great thing is that the Spirit will help us through this. The Holy Spirit is our helper, and part of that help is interceding on our behalf so that we can turn from our sinful nature. God is always working for the good of the believers.

Romans 7

Our brains have difficulty processing negatives. In fact, I wonder if it's even possible for us to process a negative statement. Let me give you an example: do not think about an elephant in a tutu. You saw in your mind an elephant in a tutu, didn't you? Of course you did, you can't help it. It's almost as if your brain completely ignores the word "not." It's part of our nature, and it creates opportunities for sin.

Before I told you not to think about an elephant, odds are that you weren't thinking one, but the second that I told you not to do it, you did. And even now, you may still have some thought of an elephant in your head that you just can't get rid of. Why an elephant? Why is it wearing a tutu? Is it graceful? Sorry, I got sidetracked.

The point is, as a species, we are sinful, but our sinning tends to increase in relation to number of things that we are told to avoid. Thinking about an elephant is not all that important, but the second that we are told not to covet, to use Paul's example, we start to covet. It's a destructive cycle. The good news is that we can live through the grace of Jesus and step away from the legality of the Law. We can't ignore the Law, but we don't have to be bound to it, and we can live with assurance of salvation and forgiveness through grace. Because trying it on our own is going to be like trying to not think of an elephant, it's impossible.

Romans 6

Should we sin just because we are forgiven? Should we worry about doing the right thing since we are already saved?

These are things that we use to justify our continually sinful behavior and nature. Regardless of whether we are forgiven or saved, nothing has changed in terms of proper behavior. God still expects us to uphold His statutes and strive to cease sinning. Of course, we are forgiven for our sins and God realizes that we aren't perfect, but for us to continue to sin does not represent any change in our heart.

When we are united with Christ, we are no longer slaves to sin. We have the ability to call on the Holy Spirit to assist in times of temptation. Although we can't, by natural means, help but to sin, we can by supernatural means avoid it, and that is part of the learning process. A sinner outside of a relationship with God doesn't realize that anything is wrong. He's always been a slave to sin, so he's just behaving the way that he always has. A Christian is a slave to righteousness, so it's glaringly obvious in his spirit when he has sinned and stepped outside of righteousness.

Romans 5

There are two landmark events in the spiritual history of man. The first is the introduction of sin. God gave a specific command to Adam, and Adam disobeyed that command. From that point forward man was enslaved to sin. Death was given reign over the world and man was powerless to stop it. Man still is powerless to stop it.

Further down the line, God gave man the Law. The Law was designed to help man recognize his sin and his ultimate fate of death. It revealed the despair of humanity. One man made a single mistake and condemned all of those behind him to a penalty of death. It seems unfair, but it's not all that uncommon. One man in the White House can order thousands to battle and death, one man in the Kremlin can devastate an entire continent with the push of a button, it's not all that unreasonable to think that decisions on a universal, spiritual scale could impact generations to come.

But it didn't stay that way. Much like decisions that we make in the physical world, change happens and new opportunities are presented. Through Christ, the reign of death was broken. Through Christ, the sin was forgiven and the opportunity for redemption was made available to humankind. So, through a single man humanity was condemned and through a single man humanity was saved.

The first Adam and the second Adam were both the direct offspring of God. The first was merely an image of God, and the second was the embodiment of God. There's a huge difference. In the first, God was creating a new kind of being; a human being. In the second, God was creating a way to relate to a human being. In the first, the condemnation was extended to all without discrimination, and in the second, salvation was provided only to those that believe.

Stop following in the footsteps of the first Adam, you can't possibly succeed. Start following in the footsteps of the second.

Romans 4

There are only two ways to go in a relationship with God: worker and taskmaster or child and father.

The worker receives the just recompense for his labor based on the quality and amount of work that is done for the taskmaster and there is always a separation between the two. In the case of God, the standard by which he judges the work is so far above the quality of work that we can produce, there is not only no hope of ever getting to know God, there is also no hope of ever being able to earn any beneficial wage out of the work. Just as you don't want to pay a service man who was unable to repair your car, God won't reward those that can't repair the world.

The good news is that our relationship with God does not have to be that of worker and taskmaster. God is willing to do the work as our Father and to treat us as His children. Just like with our own kids, He still has work for us to do, but it is work like chores. We can't be fired for not doing them, and we don't lose wages for doing them poorly. We remain in the family regardless and we still receive the inheritance regardless. It's just a question of the quality of relationship that we have with the Father.

As proof of this dynamic, Paul takes us back to Abraham and points out that Abraham was not justified before God because he followed the Law. He was not justified because of his works. In fact, Paul points out that Abraham was justified before God before the Law even existed. He was justified before there even was a notion of circumcision. The Law came much later with Moses and the circumcision served only as a reminder of the family that he had joined through his faith in God.

Therefore, Paul says that we are foolish to believe that we must do this or that to receive God's reward. God has never worked that way and never will. All that must happen is for us to realize that God can do as He wills and that we must believe that and allow God to direct our paths.

Romans 3

Some things exist only because we believe that they exist. For example, our economy is based on the belief that our money is worth something. There is not enough gold and silver in the world to back the amount of money that our treasury puts out, but we still continue to believe that a dollar is worth something more than the paper that it's printed on. If we stop believing in the value of our dollar, then our entire economic system will collapse.

On the other hand, there are things that exist regardless of whether you believe in them or not. They are absolutes. Gravity, for example, would continue to hold you to the earth regardless of whether you believed in it or not. As a matter of fact, no one even knew what gravity was until the 1680s. That didn't keep it from working before then even though no one believed in it.

God is like gravity. He'll be there regardless of whether we believe or not, and that testifies to the glory of God. The temptation of some, though, is to take this line of reasoning and skew it a little. They would say that when someone lacks faith then that increases God's glory when God is finally revealed to be true, so disbelief is actually just as good as real belief if not better. I've even heard some say that Satan is not really evil because He exists so that God can be seen as good. Without the contrast, they say, we wouldn't be able to recognize good and evil, so they are really both good in a sense.

What a convoluted, crazy way to view the world! We are already sinners. We are already condemned to death. Why in the world would want to forsake forgiveness in a vain attempt to do more evil so that God can be glorified. God is glorified regardless. Choose Him. Our faith in Christ is the only way that we can truly do any good at all.

Romans 2

What good is it to call ourselves Christian and then behave as a pagan? None. There is a story about Alexander the Great where supposedly a young man was brought before Alexander because he had fled in battle. Alexander the Great, of course, did not approve of this behavior and asked the young man his name. The young man replied that his name was also Alexander, to which, Alexander the Great responded, "Change your name or change your behavior."

So many Christians today need to understand this story. If you are going to have the name of Christian, then the behavior must come along with it. This is not to say that we are saved through our works because we are not; it is just to say that there is a certain behavior that comes from a relationship with God. If you are not exhibiting that behavior, then you may want to take another look at your relationship with God.

The statement that I have heard many times before, and that statement that Paul makes to the Romans, is that there are plenty of people in the world that are more Christian than the people that go to church every Sunday. Paul's statement is more along the lines of the fact there are plenty of people that are closer to God without circumcision than there are that have circumcision. In both cases, trust is being placed in the wrong thing. In one case it is likely a trust in church attendance and in the other it's the fact that they are physically circumcised. God is not looking for either of these. God is looking for a relationship which means communion with Him all the time and a circumcision of the heart.

Romans 1

People ask all the time about what will happen to those that die in some far off country and have never heard the Gospel. Will God condemn to the flames as a result of their disbelief? The problem, though, with this line of thinking is the assumption that there is disbelief at all. Paul tells us in this passage that God's nature and power are clearly visible to everyone and that man is without excuse.

Paul tells us that there are some in Rome that have believed even though Paul hasn't ever been able to bring the Gospel there. The Romans are almost like the people that we worry about. They are the ones that are on the fringe of the Christian movement at this time. They are the ones that no one has been able to reach, and yet they have heard of the Gospel and believed. Surely others have been there besides Paul and Paul was certainly not the only person preaching the Gospel. The point, though, is that God found a way to reach those that wanted to know Him.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis tells us that all of humanity has the same sense of right and wrong. He doesn't expand on that, but I think we all have to agree that it goes back to the fall of man in the garden. What else would be the logical result of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil except that mankind would then know the difference? This doesn't mean that man has any capability to behave one way or another, just that he knows the difference. I think that God also gave humanity a universal desire to have a relationship with Him.

We all believe in a supernatural power of some kind. For me, it's God and His son Jesus Christ. For others it might be something else. And for those holdout atheists that claim to not believe in anything supernatural, let me remind you that your beloved sense of reason is not to be found anywhere else in the universe. If you take God out of the equation and the universe is just a random event, then reason must also be supernatural (of course, if you leave God in, it's still supernatural, so it really doesn't matter). Regardless, we all believe in something more powerful than ourselves, and I wonder if God doesn't work with this to reveal Himself.

It's common knowledge that many different societies and religions share similar stories of creation, a flood, a messiah, a resurrection, atonement through blood, etc. Christianity certainly does not have that market cornered, but we still believe that we have the truth. How can that be reconciled? Some would say that the stories that exist in other religions are plants by Satan to drive those people away from God, but I wonder if that's really the truth.

Let me be clear before I continue. I DO NOT believe that all religions of the world are essentially the same thing. In fact, I recognize that most of the world's religions are based on a system of good deeds in return for a reward after death. Christianity and God is not about that. Christianity is about a relationship with God, and about the atonement through the blood of Christ. Without that belief, there is no reward. Period. God is very clear on this point, and I want to be as well.

I do wonder, however, why Satan would try to influence a group of people, that have never heard the Gospel, away from the Gospel. It seems like a waste of time to me. If they are already in the dark, why mess with them? And if that makes sense to you, then don't you have to wonder, where then did these near-Christian ideas come from? Does it make sense that they may have come from God? Does it make sense that, just like Paul tells us in this passage, that the people recognize the nature of God and were trying to have a relationship with Him just like the Jews?

Some people would say that that can't be true because the Jews were God's chosen people. To them, I would ask, chosen for what? They weren't the only people that God revealed Himself to. Even in the Old Testament, God spoke with people that were not Jewish (Balaam – Numbers 22). So why wouldn't He also speak or reveal Himself to those on the other side of the world? Could that be the reason that the stories are so similar?

At the same time, Paul reminds us that while every man has the ability to know God, every man also has the ability to recognize the difference between good and evil, and that in some cases, God has allowed man to choose evil and has turned man over to the natural results of that. Entire societies have been brought down by the results of disease, famine, war, earthquakes, and floods. Some of that, Paul attests, is the result of the evil of man and the judgment of God. What will be the result for our society? We have a near-Christian idea of God just like many others that we consider pagan. Collectively, we tend to accept the evil that men do as okay for them if it doesn't touch me. Generally, we turn our head when people make their own choices to ignore God. Will this result in our downfall? And what will that downfall look like?

Matthew 28

Who are we more like: the disciples or the soldiers and chief priests? The disciples did not witness Christ's resurrection, but accepted it as true and went to the meeting place where Jesus was supposed to appear. Some doubted, but they went anyway. On the other hand, the high priests did not witness the resurrection either, and they rejected eyewitness testimony and created a more plausible explanation.

Our society has become so focused on science and technology, I think that we tend more toward the latter in most cases. When we hear of an event that defies explanation we are not going to assume that it's true and that it's a miracle of God. We are going to look for a plausible scientific explanation and if we can't find, we'll make up a new theory to justify it. How can we do this and call ourselves Christian at the same time? How can we justify being closed to the idea that some things happen outside of the "normal" rules?

God can do anything. We need to be open to the possibilities and not closed off in a temple of reason and science.

Matthew 27

On the surface, this seems like a part of the Bible that doesn't make good logical sense. If Jesus was supposed to be crucified as the ultimate sacrificial lamb, then why is Judas portrayed negatively? In the Old Testament, the high priest was not portrayed negatively when he killed the sacrificial lamb. Nor was the man who brought the lamb or the man who sold the lamb. All of these people were understood to work in concert together so that the sacrifice could occur and the sins of the people could be atoned until the next sacrifice. If Jesus was supposed to be that sacrificial lamb, then why was Judas not appreciated, and why did he end up committing suicide?

We have to remember that none of the disciples understood why Jesus had to die. At least not at this point, they didn't. They wanted Him to stay with them and continue to teach them. Basically, they were selfish. Judas was selfish in that he wanted money and was willing to trade Christ for it. The rest of the disciples were selfish in that they didn't want Christ to leave them and then once He was arrested they were selfish in that they didn't want to be associated with Him. It's a bit ironic I think when you realize that all of the disciples had the same problem, it manifested itself in different ways, and it all served to the glory of God.

If Judas had not been selfish, He would not have betrayed Christ and started events in motion that ultimately led to His death: the atoning sacrifice for all of mankind. If the other disciples had not been selfish then perhaps they would have stood by Christ's side and forced a different outcome at the trials. Perhaps they would have reminded the crowd of Jesus' teachings and miracles and persuaded them to crucify Barrabas. Their selfishness kept them away and allowed events to continue unfolding so that Christ would be sacrificed.

Does this mean that we should be okay with sin in our lives? Or does this mean that it was really a sin for the disciples to be selfish? Or is it even more complicated than that? I don't know. I suspect that it is more complicated than that. Sin is sin, but God is able to use all things to His glory. Judas was wrong in betraying Christ because of His motivation. If he had done it out of the same motivation as the high priest, or the man who offered the lamb, or the man who sold the lamb, His outcome would likely have been different. He didn't work from the standpoint of saving the world, though. He worked from the standpoint of serving himself.

This passage doesn't seem to make sense on the surface and books have emerged that take that apparently illogical turn of events and try to make things different than they were. The fact remains, though, that there is no inconsistency with God, and this is just one more reminder of why everyone (including the disciples) need salvation.

Matthew 26

We've got to be honest with ourselves. If Jesus walked in right now and said that you need to do something for Him, would you do it? I'll bet that most of everyone would answer yes to that question. Even those that don't believe in God would probably obey because if Christ walked in the room, then their disbelief would go away pretty quickly. The problem is that that's not an honest answer. It's a hopeful answer. It's an optimistic answer. It's not an honest answer.

Look at the example of the disciples. Christ asked them to stay awake and pray while He was praying in the garden. These guys lived with Christ. They walked and talked with Him. They knew that He was the Son of God, and they couldn't even figure out a plan to keep each other awake. Peter and the others scattered to the wind when Christ was captured. And Peter even denied Christ three times after he specifically told Jesus that he would never do such a thing.

If the disciples couldn't keep it together when Christ asked for relatively simple things, then how arrogant must we be to think that we could? How prideful are we to think that we can do this on our own? We can't. We never could. And neither could the disciples. That's the whole reason behind Christ coming in the first place. Do you think things would have gone differently in this part of the passage if the disciples had stepped down from their pride and admitted to Christ that they couldn't do it alone? Would it have been different if they had asked for help? We'll never know for sure, but I'm glad that they didn't. It reminds me of what will happen in my own life if I start to get to sure of myself and start to believe that I have the strength to follow on my own.

Matthew 25

Are you taking care of others? Are you looking for people in need and trying to bridge the gap to meet their needs?

At the end of this chapter, Jesus wasn't just talking about meeting physical needs. Although it is important for us to do that, it is not the most important need for us to meet. We forget sometimes that meeting physical needs is often the first step in being able to help address the more pressing spiritual needs of humanity. Our society, and our churches by extension, has come to rely too heavily on the government to provide for the people in need that we tend to overlook them as we go about our worship surrounded by others that are just as well off as ourselves.

Meeting physical needs builds relationships and building relationships leads to the ability to meet the spiritual needs that Christ is also talking about in this passage. Have you fed someone with the meat of the Word? Have you given someone a drink of the milk of the Word? Have you invited someone to join you as a brother in Christ? Have you helped to clothe someone in the Armor of God? Have you walked alongside someone hurting with sin? Or have you shown the way to be free from the prison of sin?

Matthew 24

We must be vigilant to stay alert for Christ's return, and remember that when He does return it will be recognizable by everyone. It will not be a secret. It will happen suddenly and unexpectedly, but it will not be something that is secret. Christ warns us that things will get much worse before they get any better and that in the midst of that calamity He will return. He also warns us to guard against those that would suggest that they know the day or time of Christ's return.

I wonder if, even with this description, we really understand the true nature of Christ's return. The coming of the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament and yet the religious leaders that had devoted their entire lives to searching for the Messiah did not recognize Him. I wonder if it will be similar for us. We've convinced ourselves that we are so certain of what it will be like. Books have even been written describing the events in fictional detail. But what if His second coming is like His first.

Not that he would come the second time as a baby and somewhat in secret. He's already said that that wouldn't happen, but what if it's similar in the sense that it's not in the way that we are picturing. Has our perspective, like that of the Jews, become distorted as a result of the circumstances of the world in which we live? Would we recognize it if we had the same problems as the Pharisees of Jesus' time?

Matthew 23

Do we spend too much time making ourselves visible in the world, focused on our buildings and sermons with the justification that it will bring more people to Christ? The Pharisees enjoyed a position of authority and power in the time of Christ. They were the religious leaders and the legal leaders of the Israelite society, but they were still just men. They went through all of the motions that made them ceremonially clean. They went through the motions of upholding the law, but they forgot about the Spirit of the law. They forgot that we are all just human.

In our churches today, there are some that feel this same way. They like to impress people with the things that they do. They like to impress others with their knowledge, their spirituality, their giving, their salvation. These are no different than the Pharisees and it sets a dangerous reputation in front of all Christians. If we are judged by those that call themselves Christian, then sometimes I don't' want to be one.

We must be careful to focus on what is really important.

Matthew 22

Jesus covered so much stuff in His teachings that it makes it hard to look at an entire chapter sometimes. In just this one chapter He covers the afterlife, salvation, taxes, God's commandments, and His own deity. The thing that really sticks out to me, though, is the greatest commandment. Jesus succinctly sums up everything about salvation, God, the Christian life, all of it in the space of two sentences.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." And "Love your neighbor as yourself."

All of the things that the Law said needed to be done were not possible for humans to achieve. God Himself had to take the form of a man to fulfill the Law. All God really wanted was love, though. Not sappy Hollywood love, but truly devoted conviction and commitment to Him.

I heard that a man was once asked if he would prefer to have food or a woman that loved him. And he replied that he'd prefer the woman because if she really loved him she would make sure that he had all the food he needed. God's the same way. He would prefer that He have our love over anything else because when we truly love Him, we can't help but be committed to trying to uphold as much else of the Law as possible.

If we are focused solely on loving the Law and upholding it for the sake of the Law, we are self-centered and prideful which then creates a situation whereby we are looking to blame others for their shortcomings. When we are blaming others, then, we are not loving them as ourselves. We are not recognizing that they are also people that are trying to follow God and trying to achieve their own hopes and dreams. We forget that we are part of a society and we forget that God has placed us in that society to reflect Him rather than reflect ourselves.

Remember that loving God helps to keep us focused and that recognizing that others are people, too, helps to keep us useful.

Matthew 21

We forget sometimes who the true owners are. We get caught up in our jobs and we forget that ultimately the company owns everything that we do. It's not ours. We are working for someone else. We get caught up in parenting and we forget that our kids are not our possessions. They are people with their own lives and their own hopes and dreams. We get caught up in our faith and we forget that it is not our Gospel. It's the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The workers in the vineyard forgot that they were working for the owner and when it came time to share the crop with the owner they defended the vineyard as if it were their own property. They became greedy and lost their perspective, so instead of giving up a portion of what they had worked for in accordance with their agreement as tenants, they gave up their homes and possibly their lives as murderers.

What do we give up when we lose perspective and start to think of the Gospel as our own story? Or when we self-righteously guard our work against the very company that enabled us to have employment? Or when we try to run our children's lives as if they were our own lives?

Jesus was speaking directly to the Pharisees in this parable, and they realized that he meant that they had rejected all attempts by God to keep them in a relationship with Him. At that point, God was willing to allow others (the Gentiles) into the vineyard to do His work. The Hebrews had rejected Him and had lost their perspective. Originally designed to share the Gospel with the world, they chose to shut themselves off from the world and act as if the Word of God was theirs to hoard.

In our case, we are not Pharisees and we are not preparing to kill Christ, but we do still have similar challenges with our perspective of things as I listed above. We must be careful to recognize when we are becoming too prideful and allow God to humble us so that we don't become a second generation of Pharisees – caught up in our own Scriptures and separated from a real relationship with God.

Matthew 20

There are always at least two ways to look at a situation: from your own selfish perspective and from the perspective of others. When the workers in the vineyard saw the owner pay those that came later in the day the same as those that worked all day, they immediately assumed a selfish perspective and blamed the owner for shortchanging them on their wages. In fact, the owner had paid them the exact amount that they had agreed meaning that he was honoring his commitment to them. On the other hand, he paid that same amount to workers that had been there less time, and they declared that to be unfair. The owner again showed his integrity by agreeing that it was not fair; it was generous.

Life is not always fair, and we don't really want it to be. Sometimes we see that inequity in our favor, and we praise it. Sometimes we see it move against us, and we curse it. The problem is that most of the time we only see it from our own selfish perspective and so it's wrong both ways. When inequity is in our favor and it harms others, should we not condemn that in favor of the one that is hurt? And when we perceive it as unfair to us should we not check again, like the workers in the parable, to see if it is indeed unfair or if it is generosity on the part of the landowner?

There are angels in heaven that have never sinned against God and have never had an opportunity to have a true relationship with the Father. There are saints that walked through more trials than I will ever see. Praise God that He is generous enough to pay us all equally in terms of salvation.

Matthew 19

Success on earth does not correlate to success in heaven. It seems kind of obvious, but it is easy to overlook in our wealthy society. We forget how wealthy we are in America until we step outside of our country and see the rest of the world. And until we see that, we forget just how preoccupied we really are with our material possessions.

This is not just about being wealthy in terms of having cash. It's about having too many things that distract from the Christian walk. It's so easy to have a job, a spouse, a kid, a car, a house, a hobby, or even money become more important in your life than Christ that it makes it almost too easy to believe that the things give us time to spend with God rather than that God gives us time with the things.

How many of us would say that we could spend more time volunteering at church if we had a better job? Or we could donate more money to this or that cause if we had more money? Or we could assist more people in need if our kids were a little older?

That's backward. It's not that God doesn't want us to have money or kids or jobs, it's just that He doesn't want us to focus on them first. When you get to the place that you realize that spending more time with God will enhance your relationship with your kids, with others, with your job, etc., then you have started to find the thing that Jesus was describing to the rich man.