Romans 8

Logic, trust and action, they are the sequence that activate our humanity. We think, we decide and we act. This is the process for all human behavior. It is this humanity Paul saw exposed in himself as saturated with sin and he saw in Jesus God's perfection. What gave him that insight was the Law, particularly the 10th Commandment, that said, ‘Thou shalt not covet (Ex.20:17).'

Up to that point he was consumed in getting his life (and everyone else’s) right through the…

In order to really answer this question we have to look at the individual human condition. Three things standout about the common human condition, aloneness, our perceived needs in that aloneness and how we deal with them. For now we’ll look at aloneness. From here on we will deal with needs and how we meet them.

The human condition is one of being born into a growing awareness of individual self-conscious aloneness, the needs arising from that aloneness, and facing the fact that the…

Why Jesus? It's About Who We Claim to Be

Who told you who and what you are? Who and what gave them the right? Who or what do we choose to define ourselves and others? Everyone has a lens through which they view themselves and the people around them. What principles of thought and behavior do we use to size up those in our family and the people we meet? What goes on inside us that we want the world to see whenever we are among others? What do we want to be like when we are in the midst…

Romans 7 Think of It this Way

As we have done before we start with the last chapter's closing verse, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ (6:23).”

We need to keep that verse in the larger picture of our lives. Death is the devil's dark night. Sin and its evils thrive on darkness. Eternal light is the presence of Jesus in His Kingdom of life, love, honesty and openness. What sin through fear drives within, love through faith…

On Being Number One

When you watch almost any sports game and the winner emerges you'll see a vast display of fans with their hands reaching up with the index finger extended to signify they are number one because the team won that for them. But what does it really mean to be number one? For few moments a team made us feel that we were backing a winner which made us more right than those who were backing a loser. Perhaps it was representing a town, school or region we identified as…

Watch Out for the ‘A’ Word

“Your tongue plots destruction; it is like a sharpened razor, you who practice deceit. You love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than speaking the truth. You love every harmful word. O you deceitful tongue (Ps.52:2-4)!”

The object of this cutting psalm is Doeg the Edomite who, while David was on the run from Saul, informed Saul of David's location to gain Saul's favor. The dynamic of betrayal to gain favor with someone in power is seen…

Getting a Hold on Life

Problem: Looking without to see within

Solution: Looking within to see without

The introduction to Romans 5 is 4:23-25: “The words "it was credited to him" (Abraham) were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”

If you have ever been on the top of…

Faith is Boots on the Ground

“Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by…

The New Norm; What Is It and How Do We Get It?

The intellectually disabled liberal mindset is after us to take 'old' values, discard them and come up with so-called new concepts to breed what is called 'the new norm.' It is actually the same 'old' anti-God self-elevation called sin masquerading as modern freedom from past inhibition. The 'new norm' is really anarchy of the individual mind, heart and spirit. It's rebellion against God and His people. We see it reflected in the mass…

Standing in Faith Romans 3:21-26 cont.

A saddened and frustrated architect looks at a collapsed building he had designed, goes back to his drawing board, surveys every detail of his blueprints and, in anger, sweeps his arm across the tables scattering the blueprints across the floor. What went wrong? Where are the flaws? Was it his design? No one is perfect but he had checked every drawing and had his subordinates recheck them. He begins to survey every step of the construction from…

Faith, the Key to Every Next Moment (Romans 3:21ff)

Paul's appeal in Chapter 1 is to consider Creation as a revelation of the spiritual reality that lies behind everything we see in physical reality. I don’t think most people have a problem with Creation and a Creator. Creation has to start somewhere and a natural conclusion is to see someone behind it. The problem comes when the invisible personal and relational nature of the Creator comes into play. There is a ‘disconnect’ when we…

Letting God Get His Mind Around Us

Just as there is a difference between God’s wrath and man’s wrath there is also a difference between God’s judgment and man’s judgment. But first we need to revisit the whole issue of wrath. After that we will look at judgment.

God’s wrath is born out of His Holiness and perfection. It is not a planned wrath but rather the reaction of His sheer power of perfection and holiness that cannot but reject sin and evil. It is His nature to be…

‘Seeing is Believing?’ No, Believing is Seeing!

In a speech to Cambridge University students on Dec.4,1857 Dr. David Livingstone, the famous missionary physician said, “People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay?…Say rather, it is a privilege…” Then he said, “God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on…

"Jesus renounced the joys of heaven for the sorrows of earth, exchanging an eternal immunity to the approach of sin for painful contact with evil in this world. He was born of a lowly Hebrew mother in a dirty stable in the insignificant village of Bethlehem. He became a refugee baby in Egypt. He was brought up in the obscure hamlet of Nazareth, and toiled at a carpenter's bench to support his mother and the other children in their home. In due time he became an itinerant preacher, with few…

Judgment, God's and Ours

Paul launches what is his most strenuous attack on the human condition of sin and its resultant behavior (Rom.1:18-32). In this long biting passage Paul has been inspired to hold nothing back. The opening of his letter to believers in Rome is a blanket statement of the truth of the Gospel of God in Jesus the Christ, its inclusiveness of all humanity and the Roman Christians’ part in it. But there is an urgency in his message. They and all others who will…

Faith, The Eye of the Spirit

In 1952 the Mathews Bridge was built connecting Arlington to downtown Jacksonville. Just before its official opening I drove the first bus across it. It was more a time issue than anything else. The bus was a green JJC bus (now JU). I drove the JJC Glee Club to a concert downtown.

Prior to that bridge being built there were only two other bridges, the Old Bridge (Acosta) and the New Bridge (Main Street) as they were then called. There were two big…

Reason, The Eye of the Mind

“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that is in you...(1Peter 3:15).”

If we perceive something, say an attitude, can we trust the conclusions we make about it? That is, are we reading that attitude accurately? What is the reasoning behind it? We have to remember that our sinful nature tends to work for safety out of fear and pride. We may have a…

Perception, The Eye of the Heart

'Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.' (Matt.13:14, Jesus quoting Is.6:9)

What we hear, do we understand? What we see, do we grasp its meaning? Perceiving is a heart thing that the mind is challenged to define. Perception will call for a response. That's where we are called to act in faith. Are we hearing by faith and are we seeing by faith?

When you meet someone for the first time, hear what he…

Living the High Life

As you might have guessed by now I like old movies. Some were black and white and had fake backgrounds using 'rear screen projection.' Others were in color, a new advancement at the time. The point here is that the dynamics of relational interplay in them are really no different from our present human reality. It's only the technology that has changed and become more advanced. We may laugh at the seemingly overdone morality, the hairdo's and clothing but the…

Judgment, It's All Around Us

After arriving in New York City part of my initiation into gang mentality came when I was accepted to be part of a work crew at a Summer Camp in Connecticut. I was fourteen. I immediately recognized I was the smallest and the least physically able of the rest of the crew. I learned quickly in the city that that could be a real liability. I had to prove myself at some point. That point came when I realized one of the crew had a 'walleye' as it was known…