20 Don’t tear apart the work of God over what you eat. Remember, all foods are acceptable, but it is wrong to eat something if it makes another person stumble. 21 It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything else if it might cause another believer to stumble. 22 You may believe there’s nothing wrong with what you are doing, but keep it between yourself and God. Blessed are those who don’t feel guilty for doing something they have decided is right. 23 But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.

This to me speaks to those areas and things that I do that are definitely in the “gray” area. While God is very specific in the Bible regarding certain sins, there are items that may be a sin for me and not a sin for you. I think that a sin is anything that interrupts my relationship with God. For example, if I have a taco, that’s fine. But if I have a taco and I love the taco and enjoy it far too much, to the point of distraction, that is coming between God and me. Ok, I know, who really loves a taco more than God? But I guess the point is that there are things that I prioritize ahead of God. I prioritize 5 more minutes on facebook ahead of reading the Bible, for example. While 5 more minutes on facebook is fine for most people, it means that I may not dedicate the time I should to studying and being in God’s word.

Basically, if what Iam doing is pricking my conscience, I probably should not be doing it.

10 So why do you condemn another believer[a]? Why do you look down on another believer? Remember, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. 11 For the Scriptures say,
“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will confess and give praise to God.[b]’”
12 Yes, each of us will give a personal account to God. 13 So let’s stop condemning each other. Decide instead to live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall.
14 I know and am convinced on the authority of the Lord Jesus that no food, in and of itself, is wrong to eat. But if someone believes it is wrong, then for that person it is wrong. 15 And if another believer is distressed by what you eat, you are not acting in love if you eat it. Don’t let your eating ruin someone for whom Christ died. 16 Then you will not be criticized for doing something you believe is good. 17 For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. 18 If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you, too. 19 So then, let us aim for harmony in the church and try to build each other up.
These passages are the easiest to read and gloss over. It’s easy to read them and think of people who have given me a hard time and think, “Hmph, they should really read this – they could get a lot out of it!” But reading this again, I need to identify things that I do that cause someone else consternation. I need to say, “Jesus loved this person so much, He died for them” and realize that no “food” or anything else is worth causing someone else to stumble in their walk with God. If everyone treated eachother with this kind of regard, then there really would be harmony.

Sin’s Power Is Broken

1 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.
5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. 8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.
12 Do not let sin control the way you live;[a] do not give in to sinful desires. 13 Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. 14 Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.

I love Paul’s rhetorical questions! They really bring about “duh” moments. It makes me think of times when I try to make up excuses so I can ignore something God is asking me to do or to allow myself to continue sinning. When I say these excuses out loud to someone else, it becomes SO clear to me how absolutely silly I am being. Even this blog is a great example: I won’t write it because people might read it! WOW – that’s LAME!

Anyway, Paul addresses one of the dumb excuses people were giving: Doesn’t God look good if I am bad? NO! That is not the case. Jesus died for our sins and through our faith, we mimic that by dying to our old ways and embracing God’s will. If we keep sinning, does that indicate a change in our hearts?

Even more importantly, we become slaves to sin. Once sin gets us, it doesn’t let go. Our personalities change for the worse, our priorities elevate the sinful behavior, we are selfish. But when God is our master, our hearts are light and we love God and we love people. There is tremendous freedom when God is our master and not sin!

Adam and Christ Contrasted
12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. 13 Yes, people sinned even before the law was given. But it was not counted as sin because there was not yet any law to break. 14 Still, everyone died—from the time of Adam to the time of Moses—even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come. 15 But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. 16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.
18 Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. 19 Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous.
20 God’s law was given so that all people could see how sinful they were. But as people sinned more and more, God’s wonderful grace became more abundant. 21 So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. First, a quick note – I am testing out the NLT (New Living Translation) in this reading because Laurie recommended it. I thought I might wait until the next book to really dive into NLT, but I really liked the version.

Anyway, on to the meat of the situation. I remember once that someone in my family took all of my mom’s good red pens and left the caps off and the pens dried out. These pens were expensive and she was using them for all of the Christmas cards. Anyway, she asked all of the kids if we took the caps off of the pens and we all told her that we didn’t. Well, someone had to have taken the caps off of the pens, they didn’t just uncap magically – so all of us kids were grounded all day long. NOT FUN. Finally, late in the afternoon, one of my sibs finally fessed up to it (I’m not going to out anyone here – not the point) and we were un-grounded.

Long story longer – it only takes one person to ruin everyone else’s good time and that is basically what happened with Adam & Eve. Generations of people died forever as a result of Adam & Eve’s actions, which is quite the price to pay.

It makes me think – what kinds of sin is passed on from generation to generation? Adam and Eve got the ball rolling with sin in general, but it seems like some families struggle with the same kind of sin from one generation to the next. The good news is, it doesn’t need to be like that. The cycle of sin can be stopped.

But while salvation was lost at the hands of one man, it was won back at the hands of another man. Paul says that God gave us the law so that we could see how we fell short of God’s law, but that his grace and mercy is abundant.

I think it’s kind of cool that while one guy ruined the party for everyone, one man made it right. It’s like God’s own brand of poetic justice.

Peace and Joy
1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we[a]have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we[b] rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but we[c] also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
6You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

I love these verses because do a nice job of summarizing everything we have been reading in Romans up to this point. So here we go, in my understanding: In order to gain salvation, we have to be righteous/sinless. We cannot be righteous on our own, our righteousness comes through having faith. And through that faith, we become righteous and we are then therefore justified and able to gain salvation through Jesus.

Even though we have faith, this doesn’t mean that we will not be faced with difficult times. Paul says to rejoice in those difficult times because from hard times, we learn to perservere and that builds up our character. We become stronger people, more confident, and it builds our faith, too. And because of our perserverance and character, we then have hope. Hope does not disappoint us because hope comes from the Holy Spirit.

And why does this hope come from the Holy Spirit? It appears, from what Paul says, that we have hope because Jesus died for us. Paul makes a really great point that it is much easier to die for someone who is “good” than for someone who is bad. That makes me think, there are people that are so easy to like/love, but Jesus died for me and I am a sinner and probably not very easy to love. I make mistakes, I fall short, yet He died for me.

Abraham Justified by Faith
1What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? 2If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. 3What does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”[a]
4Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. 5However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. 6David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: 7″Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. 8Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him.”[b]
9Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. 10Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! 11And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. 12And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.
13It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, 15because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.
16Therefore, 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. 17As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.”[c] He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.
18Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”[d] 19Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” 23The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
It appears that a struggle of the early church was that God sent his Son as savior of the Jews, and not the gentiles. (Gentiles are anyone who is not Jewish) Paul leads with the point that Abraham himself was not a circumsized Jew when he was deemed righteous for his faith – the act of circumcision occurred after he was considered righteous.

What I found to be most important about Abraham’s faith is that it was a faith of action. God promised Abraham the impossible, and Abraham still had faith in God and did not waiver. And because of his faith in God, he was deemed righteous.

Righteousness Through Faith
21But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. 22This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,[i] through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
27Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. 28For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. 29Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. 31Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

Frank and I actually had a good conversation about this over dinner last night. Righteousness is essentially being blameless/sinless in the eyes of the law. Paul is saying that righteousness cannot be acheived by the law, because we fall short – each of us. There is not one of us who hasn’t sinned – except Jesus. Therefore, righteousness is only acheived through faith in Jesus, who died for our sins.

What is atonement? Next week is Yom Kippur, a time when Jews will atone for their sins. This basically means they reconcile with God for their sins and it generally involved an animal sacrafice in Old Testament times. (Unfortunately I am not familar with what Jews do today to atone – I believe they fast) What Christians believe is that we don’t need atonement for our sins as Jesus did that for us – he was the ultimate sacrafice, fulfilling Old Testament law for us.

God is a just God. He created laws and based on the laws, as Paul points out, we all fall short of them. But God is merciful and because Jesus was the perfect sacrafice, the laws are fulfilled and justice and mercy are simulataneously carried out. That is why Paul points out in verse 36 that there can be no boasting – we did nothing to deserve this, except have faith and believe in Jesus. Our salvation does not come from observing a law, it comes through Jesus – therefore no one can take credit, except God. And what is AWESOME, is that this salvation is not limited to the Jews as Jesus died for the whole world.

And the best part? Since Jesus fulfills the law, the law is upheld (and by law, he is referring to the Old Testament laws).

No One is Righteous
9What shall we conclude then? Are we any better[b]? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”[c] 13″Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.”[d] “The poison of vipers is on their lips.”[e] 14″Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”[f] 15″Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16ruin and misery mark their ways, 17and the way of peace they do not know.”[g] 18″There is no fear of God before their eyes.”[h]

19Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. 20Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

Just a short section today, but it really stands out to me, probably because I’ve heard this sentiment before. The law really serves to illuminate where we fall short and sin, than prove any of us righteous. This is actually a really nice example that righteousness cannot be gained simply by “trying really hard” to follow the law. When we become conscious of our sin, then we understand that we fall short and really appreciate that we need a savior.