Romans

Posted: Monday, July 26, 2010 by Morgan in
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I have recently finished studying Romans with a good friend from Michigan, so I'll be periodically posting just a few of my favorite things that God showed me as I was reading. 


But first, the story of how this arrangement came about. I had been struggling with reading the Bible for a long time. Honestly, it was boring to me. I couldn't really get into it at all and I was simply reading it out of sheer, almost blind obedience, which is not the way the Bible is meant to be read. It's the living, breathing, Word of God, and I was treating it like homework from a history textbook (most of you know how much I just LOVE history). I was talking to my mom about it and she encouraged me to find someone else I could study it with. It just so happened that I called my friend the next day and told him about that conversation. He said he was restarting Romans the next day and that I could join him. Even this seemingly insignificant coincidence of plans was directly from God. In the weeks that followed, God gave me the joy in reading his word that I have almost constantly been praying for over the past year or so. 

Anyway, here is a tiny bit from the first part of the first chapter. If I wrote much more, people would just stop reading my blog because it would get so long. Seriously, someone could write a book about this stuff.

Romans 1:18-32
This section is about the consequences of failure to honor God: "For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened." (R 1:21)

So God is obvious, and it isn't that man doesn't see God, it's that he tries to ignore him and worship the things of this world. Here's the scary part. God lets him. God hands him over to his sinful nature. He doesn't force man to be righteous, but lets him become all the depraved things Paul lists in verses 29-31. Man knows that these things are wrong, but he accepts them wholeheartedly and praises others who practice them. All this (envy, strife, maliciousness, invention of evil, hatred of God, ruthlessness, and deceit to name a few) comes from the root cause of not giving honor to God. It's a slippery slope, so don't forget who is the potter and who is the clay. 

I could go into some stuff about freewill vs. predestination here, but I'll save it for later. We'll come back to this section.

"For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the path of justice and watching over the ways of his saints." Proverbs 2:6-8

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