:16-17 The gospel is the power of God to salvation. The gospel reveals righteousness. It is only obtained by faith and built upon by faith. The righteous shall live by faith (Hab 2:4) Faith comes from reading the Word. (Rom 10:17) In conclusion: the righteous live by what the Bible says.
:20-31 God has been made plain to all through His creation so all men are accountable to Him. Men have chosen their own wisdom in exchange for Godly wisdom and God let them do it. In doing so man has grown worse in their sin and now approve of others doing it too.
Romans 2:1-2 'Judgmental criticism of others is a well-known way of escaping detection in your own crimes and misdemeanors. But God isn't so easily diverted. He sees right through all such smoke screens and holds you to what you've done.' (Message) When you judge others you condemn yourself.
:5 'But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.' (NIV)
:6 God '"will give to each person according to what he has done."' (NIV) Because you don't change you compound your sin against yourself.
:17-24 If you teach others, you must teach yourself. You cannot say one thing and do another.
:25-29 God looks on the heart so live by the heart and spirit. Outward glory is too hard to live up to. Inward glory is for God alone and He will reward. I Sam 16:7 'But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."' (NASB) Rev 2:23
Romans 3:4 'God keeps his word even when the whole world is lying through its teeth.' (Message)
:10-11 Without God none of us is righteous.
:22-23 Righteousness comes though faith in Jesus to all who believe. We all sinned so all can receive righteousness. (5:12)
:25 Jesus became our atonemennt and His blood is worthy to forgive our sins.
:28 Man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. (NIV)
Romans 4:2-3 Abraham had both works and belief. God accepted only his belief for righteousness.
:4 Works are given wages for and not as a gift.
:11 Abraham's circumcision was a seal for his faith-righteousness conversion. You can't earn His forgiveness. God did the work for us and there is no other way.
:16 'Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all.' (NIV)
:17 God is God of the impossible. He raises the dead and (I Cor 1:26-31) makes what is foolish wise and wise foolish. He creates something out of nothing with a word.
:18 Against all hope, [When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn't do but on what God said he would do.] (Message) Sometimes God wants us to walk in faith when everybody and thing is against us. If He said it, it will be done. (Acts 27:21-26)
:20 'yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith.' (NASB) Not wavering is giving respect to God's promise. Fear = disrespect to God. 'Abraham didn't focus on his own impotence and say, "It's hopeless. This hundred-year-old body could never father a child." Nor did he survey Sarah's decades of infertility and give up. He didn't tiptoe around God's promise asking cautiously skeptical questions. He plunged into the promise and came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good on what he had said.' (Message :19-20) He didn't focus on what he saw but on what he couldn't see. He believed God instead of the circumstances. (Heb 11:1-3, 11-12)
:24 We are given this same righteousness when we believe.
:25 Jesus died for our sins and rose for our justification. He made us right with God. (our acquittal) [making our account balance and absolving us from all guilt before God]. (Amplified)
Romans 5:1-2 Faith is a key that opens the treasure chest of God. We believe, we get peace with God, we walk in grace, and we are overjoyed for our future hope (heaven).
:3-5 We are overjoyed because of suffering because suffering (tribulations)(NASB) results in perseverance. 'There's more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we're hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we're never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can't round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!' (Message) 1Peter 3:14 'But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.' (NIV) Wow is my perspective off!!! There is a pattern here: suffering to perseverance to character to hope. Hope is there because of the Holy Spirit and He confirms our hope. Psalm 119:50 'My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life.' (NIV) This can happen all at once or over a long period of time. The pattern must not be broken or it becomes a false hope. We will suffer, we need to persevere, through these builds our character, and in the end our hope remains. Luke 21:19 'By your endurance (standing firm)(NIV) you will gain your lives.' (NASB) Acts 14:12 'Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.' (NASB) Mark 8:31 'the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected.'(NIV) Romans 8:17 'Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.' (NIV) 2Cor. 1:5 'For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.' (NIV) Philippians 1:9 'For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him,' (NIV) 1Peter 2:20-21 'But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.' (NIV) 1Peter 4:1,12-19 'Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin.'(NIV) 'Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. Make sure that none of you suffers as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, he is not to be ashamed, but is to glorify God in this name. For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?AND IF IT IS WITH DIFFICULTY THAT THE RIGHTEOUS IS SAVED, WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE GODLESS MAN AND THE SINNER? Therefore, those also who suffer according to the will of God shall entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right.'(NASB)
:8 God's demonstration of love for us = Jesus dying on the cross.
:21 'so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.' (NIV)
Romans 6:4 We are baptized into Christ's death and raised into new life just as He was.
:6,12-14 'Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call!' 'That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.' (Message)
:20-21,23 'As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.'
'A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.' (Message) This chapter is all about a polar change in one's life that leads to eternity. Eternity is death or life. Your choice of rejecting sin and accepting Jesus is life. Your choice of accepting sin and rejecting Jesus is death. This is the truth and no other choices are available. Deuteronomy 30 talks of this choice. :6 'The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.'(NIV) :15-16 'See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.'(NIV) These verses talk of living out that heavenly life here on Earth.
Romans 7:5 When our flesh controls us 'the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.' (NIV)
:6 When we die to the law we follow the Spirit.
:10 'I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.' (NIV)
:11-25 'Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel. I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.'(Message) This chapter helps us see Paul as one of us and we can relate and take joy in the fact we can make it too. The key is living in the Spirit through Jesus' deliverance.
Romans 8:1-4 If right now you are in with Jesus there is no condemnation. He erases all past wrongs with one prayer. If you get distracted and listen to other voices, you could become condemned in your mind. Jesus sets you free from the law of sin and death. God sent His son to take the place of our offering, our sin, our punishment so the law didn't disqualify us from Him. Jesus condemned the sin instead of the sin condemning us. Then by His spirit in us we can live in His requirements. 'God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.' (Message)
:5 'Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.' (NIV) You have to think on purpose. If you at going to 'set' your mind, you need to practice on what you want to think and do. Pray, worship, read the Word, meditate.
:8 God's demonstration of love for us = Jesus dying on the cross.
:21 'so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.' (NIV)
Romans 6:4 We are baptized into Christ's death and raised into new life just as He was.
:6,12-14 'Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call!' 'That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.' (Message)
:20-21,23 'As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end.'
'A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.' (Message) This chapter is all about a polar change in one's life that leads to eternity. Eternity is death or life. Your choice of rejecting sin and accepting Jesus is life. Your choice of accepting sin and rejecting Jesus is death. This is the truth and no other choices are available. Deuteronomy 30 talks of this choice. :6 'The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.'(NIV) :15-16 'See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.'(NIV) These verses talk of living out that heavenly life here on Earth.
Romans 7:5 When our flesh controls us 'the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.' (NIV)
:6 When we die to the law we follow the Spirit.
:10 'I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.' (NIV)
:11-25 'Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel. I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself—after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.'(Message) This chapter helps us see Paul as one of us and we can relate and take joy in the fact we can make it too. The key is living in the Spirit through Jesus' deliverance.
Romans 8:1-4 If right now you are in with Jesus there is no condemnation. He erases all past wrongs with one prayer. If you get distracted and listen to other voices, you could become condemned in your mind. Jesus sets you free from the law of sin and death. God sent His son to take the place of our offering, our sin, our punishment so the law didn't disqualify us from Him. Jesus condemned the sin instead of the sin condemning us. Then by His spirit in us we can live in His requirements. 'God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.' (Message)
:5 'Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.' (NIV) You have to think on purpose. If you at going to 'set' your mind, you need to practice on what you want to think and do. Pray, worship, read the Word, meditate.
:7-8 'Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.' (Message) God needs to be our focus. He has the world laid out before us and we need to walk in His plans. 'Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.' (NIV)
:11 If God raised Jesus from the dead He can change our lives through His Spirit living in us. He will never leave us or forsake us. Dt. 31:6,8, Joshua 1:5-9.
:12-17 We are to live by the Spirit because we are God's sons. If we are sons then we are heirs to Jesus. We have hard times and good just like Jesus. The things we suffer here do not even compare to the eternal glory we'll receive in heaven.
:19-21 'The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.' (NIV)
:22-26 'All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.' (Message) Where our physical weakness ends, His strength takes over. He is constantly helping us along and through every difficult time in our lives. We need to depend upon Him in stead of trying to figure it out.
:28-30 God will work every bit of our lives into good for His service. He will shape us into a mold of Jesus Christ.
:31 'If God is for us, who can be against us?' (NIV)
:32-39 God let His own Son die for us. He will provide all we need. He is our judge. :37 'No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.' (NIV) Nothing can separate us from God, nothing. No matter what we win. God is with us providing for us in every situation as long as we are living in the spirit and have our minds focused on Him. (pray, worship, read His Word, meditate, get together with follow Christians)
:11 If God raised Jesus from the dead He can change our lives through His Spirit living in us. He will never leave us or forsake us. Dt. 31:6,8, Joshua 1:5-9.
:12-17 We are to live by the Spirit because we are God's sons. If we are sons then we are heirs to Jesus. We have hard times and good just like Jesus. The things we suffer here do not even compare to the eternal glory we'll receive in heaven.
:19-21 'The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.' (NIV)
:22-26 'All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.' (Message) Where our physical weakness ends, His strength takes over. He is constantly helping us along and through every difficult time in our lives. We need to depend upon Him in stead of trying to figure it out.
:28-30 God will work every bit of our lives into good for His service. He will shape us into a mold of Jesus Christ.
:31 'If God is for us, who can be against us?' (NIV)
:32-39 God let His own Son die for us. He will provide all we need. He is our judge. :37 'No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.' (NIV) Nothing can separate us from God, nothing. No matter what we win. God is with us providing for us in every situation as long as we are living in the spirit and have our minds focused on Him. (pray, worship, read His Word, meditate, get together with follow Christians)
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