Reading Romans

 

I just read all of Romans in one sitting. It's awesome. The Lord is glorious and gracious and merciful and wonderful and soveriegn and awe-inspiring.

Bible Study Fellowship is studying Romans this year, from begining to end. We're up to chapter 3. These first fews chapters have once again convicted me of my own sin. There's no doubt that I am a dirty rotten sinner and I fully deserve God's wrath and judgement.

Romans 3: 20
20For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight,
since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Yep. The law was put into place to bring about knowledge of sin. Despite our best efforts, the law doesn't bring righetousness, but rather thanks to our sinful nature, it leads us to sin even more.

Romans 7:7-8
 7What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, "You shall not covet." 8But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law, sin lies dead.

Fortunately there is GOOD NEWS! God has graciously provided us with a righetousness apart from the law and our works.

 Romans 3: 21-25
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there -is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.

Tonight I challenged myself to read the entire book of Romans because I wanted to remind myself of our hope in Christ and there it was before I even got to chapter 4 and yet Paul continues for a total of 16 chapters. He's already presented the message of the gospel. What more could there possibly be? Well, Paul spends the rest of Romans expanding on the gospel,  warning us against the foolish conclusions that our sinful flesh would like to make about the gosple, such as an excuse to sin, and encouraging us present ourselves as living sacrifices to the Lord. In short, I could have only one book of the Bible, Romans would be it. How fortunate are we, that we have all of scripture :o)!!

There are many reasons that people refuse to believe in Christ. The number one reason would have to be that they refuse to admit that they are sinners. They'd rather work their way to heaven than to lay down their pride. When we judge others, we're merely pointing out their particular sins, rather than pointing them to Christ.