Reading through Romans always brings something to me. I never know what it's going to be but it's going to happen. This time it happened in chapter four. Paul writes about Abraham and it is always sort of my zone out point. You know if I wanted to hear about Abraham I'd go to Genesis! But there is a reason (as there always is) that God has him spoken of in Romans. I'm not saying I know it but this is what I see: Abraham had faith. This we all know because that's what Paul writes about. He's comparing the faith of Abraham to the faith of the modern Christian. They are the same, despite thousands of years of change, faith in the unchanging God hasn't changed.
What stuck me this read through was verse 21. I don't think you should really extract any sections of sentences from texts and the fact that we do that with the Bible more than anything is frightening but I won't make you read the whole text. "...and being fully convinced that what [God] had promised He was also able to perform."
How often are we truly, honestly and practically convinced that God would do what He promised? How often do we take His Word for it? How often do we hear what He has to say and then act on it, knowing He'll follow through?
"I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.”
"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
“And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”
And then when He calls on us to do hard things, things we honestly just don't have the will to do, will you do it? If we fear, will we forget what Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah knew? Will we forget what all the disciples were convinced of? Stephen, Paul, Jan Hus, Nate Saint and all the men of faith that were convinced of the Truth of the Word of God.
What stuck me this read through was verse 21. I don't think you should really extract any sections of sentences from texts and the fact that we do that with the Bible more than anything is frightening but I won't make you read the whole text. "...and being fully convinced that what [God] had promised He was also able to perform."
How often are we truly, honestly and practically convinced that God would do what He promised? How often do we take His Word for it? How often do we hear what He has to say and then act on it, knowing He'll follow through?
"I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.”
"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?"
“And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”
And then when He calls on us to do hard things, things we honestly just don't have the will to do, will you do it? If we fear, will we forget what Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah knew? Will we forget what all the disciples were convinced of? Stephen, Paul, Jan Hus, Nate Saint and all the men of faith that were convinced of the Truth of the Word of God.
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