Romans 2:17-24 Christ Fulfills the Law!

Romans 2:17-24  Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law;  if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself?  You who preach against stealing, do you steal?  You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?  You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?  You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?  As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

In the above passage, Paul addresses the Jews and their religious knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors.  The Jews relied on God’s law to save them, boasting that the law revealed God’s truth to humanity.  Through the law they could understand God’s nature: his holiness, justice, and perfection.  For them, the law sketched out the profile and essence of the Creator, removing him from the darkness of the unknown into the light of their reality where they as humans existed.  By knowing these truths about God and his nature, they believed they could teach the world about this wonderful Creator who chose them as his people: For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.  The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.  (Deuteronomy 7:6)  God gave the Jews the law, his truth, in the wilderness.  However, Paul says, since you have this precious law and since you know so much about the law and claim that it is the only truth, why do you not follow the dictates of the law in your own lives.  Why are you still lawbreakers, knowing that the law condemns lawbreakers?  You who preach against stealing, do you steal?  You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?  You who abhor idols, do you rob temples?  You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?  He says, of course you claim to conform to the law, but your lives, your conversations, your attitudes reflect another story.  Your lack of adherence to his law is an affront to God, causing Gentiles to scoff at the Jewish God.  God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.  Paul believed the Jewish people were eloquent in describing the basic tenets of the law and in defending the law; however, they seemingly were unable to satisfy the law’s commandments because of their Adam nature.  The law is good; it revealed not only the nature of God, but the nature of mankind.  As surely as it paints God as good and righteous, it concomitantly paints Adam's nature as self-serving and wayward.  Paul emphatically states: the Jews are not able to fulfill God’s demands on them.  Paul understood well the contradiction between the flesh and the law, for he was a Pharisee of good standing.  He tried to fulfill every jot and tittle of the law.  Paul states: If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.  (Philippians 3:4-6)  He thought of himself as a righteous Jew, without fault in his attempts to follow the law’s dictates.  But as a Christian, Paul found in himself a spirit that ran directly counter to the law’s demands: We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  (Romans 7:14-17)  The law is good; consequently, it highlights sin’s hold on the corrupt Adam spirit. The law’s demands reveal why mankind without Christ cannot take hold of eternal life, for the law shows the cancer within mankind.  The law condemns man to death because the law cannot remove the cancer of sin or release mankind to serve God forever.

Paul speaks mainly to Jewish people in today’s scriptures, but he also talks to the Gentile, who has developed his own laws in his conscience.  We all have laws that we follow, even though they are not scripted, written down somewhere.  We try to follow these laws judiciously; however, we often break these personal laws as often as others break the written law.  “I will never treat my wife or husband like that again.”  “I will never again get that out-of-control.”  I will never lie again.”  “I will never gossip about him again.”  “I will never again envy someone else’s goods or lifestyle.”  “ I will never complain to God again about anything.”  “I will always obey the speed limits.”  Our list can go on and on.  The laws we establish in our minds are good: they are there to govern our behavior in positive ways, pointing to a better, more loving and caring life.  When we fail because our old nature goes its own way, we condemn ourselves.  We wonder why we seem weak and helpless to implement these good laws into our lives.  As Christians, we know our failings cause other people to discount the God we claim to serve.  Rather than harvesting people for God, we sow seeds of discord and unbelief when we fail to do what we and others know is right.  And we know these failures are sin: If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.  (James 4:17)  Sometimes we even lose our children and loved ones to the world’s ways of living because of our failure to follow our own laws of how to treat people.  Laws, whether in our conscience or written in God’s Word will never free us from the Adam nature and its tendency to go its own way.  Paul found this sin abounding within himself.  He cries out in Romans 7, who can free me from this bondage?  His answer is clear: Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.  And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  (Romans 8:1-4)

Paul tells the Jewish people that they need to put their faith in a Savior who has fulfilled the righteous requirements of the law.  He also implies to the Gentiles that they too need a Savior who is completely righteous, who never failed to obey his own laws and the Father’s will.  Jesus always did what the Father wanted him to do.  From the time He was baptized in the Jordan River, He did the works of God as the Holy Spirit directed him.  We who are in Christ are free to do the will of God, free to love and serve people.  We are free to hear the voice of God within us.  We are free indeed.  When Paul wrote to the church at Galatia because they were going back to the law, he said, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  (Galatians 5:1)  We are no longer condemned by the script of the law or by the laws in our minds.  They will only condemn us, not free us because when we depend upon our own abilities we will fail.  Instead, when we live according to the Spirit, the Spirit gives us life and power to overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Jesus has saved us; He has made us part of the family of God.  Our nature has been changed.  We love people.  We care for people.  We try to be good.  Well, how is that different from following the law?  The law keeps us focussed on our failures and away from conversing with God.  When we feel condemned, we isolate ourselves.  We tend to work on being better, but when we follow the Spirit, we know we are in the family of God, and we have fellowship with God at ALL TIMES.  We know He will strengthen our souls through Jesus Christ.  We know Jesus will always be our advocate.  He will always defend us through his blood that He shed for our redemption.  Yes, we are perfect at all times because of Jesus.  We have eternal life within us because of Jesus.  We have a life of victory because of Jesus.  Sin we might.  As Christians, we are sorrowful and will confess our sins, but we can say as Paul told Timothy, I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.  (2 Timothy 1:12)  So, we will boast in Christ, not in ourselves, not in our abilities, not in our strength.  We live not by some code, either written or spoken.  May people come to Christ through our testimony.  We live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord and by the leading of the Holy Spirit.  


 

Romans 2:12-16 Jesus, Our Righteousness!

Romans 2:12-16  All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.  For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.  (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.  They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.  This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

All our secrets, everything about us, will be known on the day of judgment.  How will we measure up to Jesus Christ, the perfect one, the sinless one?  If we fail to live up to his perfection, we will not exist with God forever.  God will not allow anything imperfect to exist forever in his presence.  God is holy; therefore, we must be holy.  We must be like God.  Is this possible?  Are we who live in an environment of sin able to live a perfect, holy life?  The Bible clearly says all of us have sinned, none of us are perfect, and we have all chosen our own way to live, under our own authority instead of God’s authority.  At the beginning of creation, we see Adam and Eve choose their wisdom and knowledge over God’s wisdom and knowledge.  They chose not to rest in God’s blissful domain, called the Seventh Day, the sabbath.   Instead of rest, they chose to work by going to the tree of knowledge and eating of its fruit. This work on the day of the sabbath brought in the storm of sin and disobedience.  Rather than following their holy God, they became free agents, doing their own thing when it pleased them.  In today’s passage, we see what disobedience to God’s authority brings to man: harsh judgment.  Failure to obey either our own laws, embedded within our consciences, or God’s laws, written in his Word, will bring us into disfavor with the Creator.  God’s judgment is based on the perfect template of righteousness: Jesus Christ.  Jesus in the flesh fulfilled the law; He alone satisfied the laws requirement: complete obedience.  He obeyed the Father’s will at all times.  He fulfilled God’s purposes for his life.  Because He was directed by the Almighty Holy One, his life on Earth was perfect, satisfying God’s requirements of him.  We who are locked in sin cannot fully meet the requirement of the law: perfection at all times, perfect obedience to God’s will for our lives.  We fail—all have failed, no one is perfect.  As we read in Psalms and again in a little later in Paul’s letter: There is no one righteous, not even one, there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.  All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.  (Romans 3:10-12)   Consequently, mankind needs another way to God, a way that will not fail.  In the New Testament, the preaching of the gospel was known as THE WAY.  Of course, every Christian knows that the way comes through the gate of Paradise, Jesus Christ.  He is the only one who saves us from judgment outside of the law or under the law.

The requirements of the law are written on our hearts.  Humans understand that they should treat others as they would want to be treated.  Humans comprehend that love brings harmony and peace while hatred causes disruption and chaos.  Humans realize that the will of God is for them to do good and not evil, but their nature is competitive, self-seeking, not willing to be subservient to others, or to serve others before they serve themselves.  As we see when delving into history or even the activities of our present day, the behavior of human beings has caused and is causing tremendous pain in the world.  Even in our modern day, we see people so degraded by sin that they sell members of their race as commodities or treat each other in abusive ways for their own pleasure.  We know that hundreds of thousands of our fellow human beings are killed each year.  Sadly, collectively and individually our human nature reveals rapacious, destructive, and hurtful behaviors outside of Jesus Christ.  Breaking our own understanding of what is right and wrong, or what our conscience tells us, we fall into darkness.  The Bible does not lie when it states, There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  (Romans 3:22-23)  Likewise numerous Old Testament verses confirm this truth: Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.  (Ecclesiastes 7:20)   We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each  of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6)  Many other verses in the Bible emphatically verify mankind’s wayward and sinful nature.  Without the saving blood of Jesus, we who were made in God’s image turn ourselves into a threat to the very existence of mankind.  With nuclear power we can obliterate life; we can cause the earth itself to be toxic to life.  How far we have strayed from that glorious day in the beginning when God proclaimed that we who were made in his image were very good.  But God had a plan and his answer remains the same through millenniums of time, mankind needs a Savior, a Redeemer, to rescue them from the stormy seas of sin, from their self-destructive nature.  Of course, we know this is Jesus.  

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law.  Sin will be judged: sin will be counted unworthy to enter the portals of heaven’s domain.  As we have said before as Paul nails down this theme, sin is a cancer, whether it exists apart from the law or under the law.  The Bible is very clear.  People who try to justify themselves before God by their own righteousness will find themselves naked, exposed, without excuse for their wrongdoings.  All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.  (Isaiah 64:6)  God will judge every secret, every hidden thought, every activity that we did in the dark.  He knows everything about our lives.  Are there any righteous amongst us?  No not one.  Not one of us can stand before God completely justified by our own way of living on Earth.  We need a Savior.  We need an advocate before the righteous Father.  We need a high priest as an intermediary between God and ourselves.  Of course, Jesus Christ is that one.  He did miracles on Earth to prove that He was from God.  No man from the beginning of time had done such miraculous things.  He died for each of us, fully satisfying the penalty of sin for us.  We are special to God because we have been made in his image.  We are the biological specie that can hear his voice, know his love, and reciprocate by honoring him, by giving him our love and dedication.  He has given each of us a special name.  Each of us is unique, loved by him because of what He created in us.  We will be glorified: all creation will know us on the day He brings glory to us because we are his sons and daughters, bought by the blood of his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.  Because of that sacrifice, we are very special people right now on Earth.  Lift up your heads, realize you are free from the constraints of the law, either yours or the written law.  You no longer live by rules but as Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  (Matthew 4:4)  You are free, free to be the daughters and sons of the living God without the fear and torment of the enemy.  Enter into God’s sabbath day of rest, the Seventh Day.  Adam and Eve failed: they worked on the sabbath.  You, dear friends, rest on this day.  Cease from your own efforts, know that Christ has made you free, free to live in the bountiful presence of the living God, awaiting the day when He welcomes you home.  Amen!        

Romans 2:5-11 Rest in Freedom!

Romans 2:5-11  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.  God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”  To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.  But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.  There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.  For God does not show favoritism.

God does not judge as we judge.  We judge according to the deeds done in the flesh.  If a person seeks to do good and does good or positive things in life, we believe that person is good.  In fact, we might consider him or her without fault.  But God shows no favoritism in his judgment.  He not only looks at our good deeds and activities, He looks at the thoughts and considerations of the heart for those who persistently seek him.  Are we always doing good in our hearts?  Are our intentions positive and constructive?  Is there any waywardness from God’s goodness in our hearts?  The condition of the heart is the essential component in God’s evaluation of us.  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.  Who is unrepentant?  There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.  (Romans 3:11)  We are unrepentant when we do not honor God’s authority and seek his will at all times.  Of course at all times is the contract breaker.  Outside of Christ, the man and woman of the flesh tends to do what is right in his or her own eyes.  If we feel someone has treated us unfairly, we strike back.  If someone’s words have hurt us, we retaliate, either actively or passively.  Of course, we could go on indefinitely, describing the reactions of the flesh in this world of conflict and trouble.  God’s will is definitely not done consistently in anyone’s life.  If we were each a blank sheet of paper with God’s will written on the paper, the story would always be good and positive, but we are not a perfect record.  There are black spots and smudges on our papers, times when we have crossed out lines or even paragraphs in our remembrances because we cannot face the reality of those events, for they were self-serving, corrupt, dangerous to others and ourselves.  No, the will of God is not recorded on our sheets of paper at all times.  Sadly, THERE IS NO ONE RIGHTEOUS, NOT EVEN ONE remains a truism before God’s timeless, penetrating eyes.  Regardless of our culture, race or ethnic group, God looks favorably on those who attempt to do good the majority of time through his grace and mercy.  We were made to do good, not evil.  We were made to rest in God’s domain, for God is at rest.  We are to be at rest, at peace, with the world and each other.  We were not made to strive, compete, and battle with each other for a place of recognition or worth, too work by fleshly means to be good and not bad.  Pastors and teachers often remind us we are made in God’s image.  That is the truth, but God is at rest.  We are not: we are possessed with turmoil and struggle, often working every day to succeed, to protect our self-will and worth.  However, our daily existence should be in harmony with God’s purposes, comfortable with his will for us.  We need to enter that place of Sabbath rest by faith.  Our striving, our struggle, our works do not please God, but the fruit of his work in us through Jesus Christ pleases him.  There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from their works,  just as God did from his.  Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will perish by following their example of disobedience.  (Hebrew 4:9-11)  As Christians, we rest in God’s work.  His hand through Jesus Christ has been writing the tale of the redeemed on the pages of our lives, and those pages are completely acceptable to God.  As we follow the Lord, we will do as He commands.  When Jesus sent the disciples out to preach the Good News, the Bible says, And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following.  (Mark 16:20)  They went about doing good. 

Yes, there will be signs following a believer.  But when Jesus described the way into the kingdom of heaven to Nicodemus, He did not express how many good works he needed to earn heaven.  Jesus told him he must be born again.  Of course that idea confused Nicodemus.  He was a Pharisee whose life was based on doing good deeds, following the law of God.  What Jesus expressed to him was an anathema to his lifestyle.  Why be born again?  And how does one become born again?  How could a human and his nature be changed into a new form of being?  Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council.  He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God.  For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”  Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”  “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”  Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.  You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’  The wind blows wherever it pleases.  You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”  (John 3:1-8)  In this passage we see God the Son telling Nicodemus that there is a MUST in his life, and that MUST is that he be born again.  Of course, later Jesus tells Nicodemus that He is the gate to eternal life, to the kingdom of God: For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  (John 3:16)  What then is the key to Paul’s proposition in today’s focus?  Is it that those who do mostly good in their lives shall inherit eternal life or is it as Jesus said, you must be born again?  When we look at our verses, Paul writes, But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.  If all have gone their own way and do what is right in their own eyes as the scriptures state, we fall into Paul’s description of self-seeking.  Of course, this is hard for us who believe we are rather good people.  We do not swear, we do not strike back, we are patient, caring, loving people for the most part.  How can we be judged so harshly?  We must remember that God is without sin.  He will not accept sin into his domain.  All sin must receive recompense or judgement.  No sin will enter his presence; all sin must be dealt with; no cancer of sin will be in his kingdom.  Later on in Romans, Paul tells us how to eradicate sin permanently, and that is through the cross that dealt with sin, so we might enter into fellowship with God without contaminating his presence.  Believers place our faith in Christ, and the just live by faith.

Dear friends, as you leave this breakfast table, understand that IN CHRIST you are completely free from the eternal consequences of sin.  Christ paid the price for your sins.  As we read in the Bible: So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.  (John 8:36)  However, your love for Christ should compel you to live a life free from overt sins.  Your daily life should be dedicated to Christ.  You are, as Paul and the disciples were, a bond-slave to Christ.  You no longer live for your own purposes, but for Christ’s purposes.  Your claim of being a Christian should be demonstrated by a wholesome, upright life.  Paul warned Christians to guard their freedom in Christ, not to go backwards but to move forward as soldiers of the cross: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  (Galatians 5:1)  Christians should want Christ to be honored in every part of their lives.  We do not want to take away from God’s work in us, and we do not want to confuse or to distract others by behaving in ways that do not honor Christ.  We are eternal beings, heaven bound.  The writer of Hebrews says,  let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.  (Hebrews 12:1-2)  When we were raising our children, the older three often played school when they were young.  Christine, the oldest, was the teacher, and Jeff and Doug her pupils.  One day Jeff came in bemoaning the fact that he never got to be the teacher.  He had a strong argument to support his bid for change: “Don’t you think if Christine was a real Christian, she would let me teach sometimes?”  Now his logic may have brought a smile to my face, but it also made me think that our testimony does need to line up with our behaviors.  And Christine was easily persuaded to give Jeff a turn at teaching without casting blame on her witness for Christ.  Jesus is the light of the world.  We bring ourselves to Jesus, casting all our cares on him, trusting him to use us for his glory.  Today is the day of rest, in the year of the Lord’s favor.  Today is the day to completely bury yourself under the blood of Jesus.  Today is the day to celebrate your new life in him while doing good to all people.  As the children of light, let us bring that light to the whole world for God.  Your Savior lives, and you live in him for God’s purposes in glory, honor and peace.  Amen!  

Romans 2:1-4 Respect God's Kindness!

Romans 2:1-4  You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.  Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth.  So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?  Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

In this passage, Paul refers to his previous statement about humans being given over to a depraved mind, and he enumerated several of these sinful attitudes: envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, and the like.  He also stated that those immersed in sin, gossip, slander, and hate God; they are insolent, boastful, and arrogant. They even invent ways to do evil, as we see on the internet in our present day.  All of these attitudes within humans come under the heading: they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God.  (Romans 1:28)  Most of us look at this list of destructive activity, of sin, and say that it does not describe us.  I am not a killer, a hater, a person who does not acknowledge God.   But Paul says we are not to pass judgment, for we are from the same mold as people who do these things or have done them.  We are susceptible to all sinful activity.  The Pharisees thought they were very holy and believed their righteousness exceeded that of the ordinary person.  The people believed this too and highly esteemed the Pharisees who received places of honor at celebrations or community events.  However, Jesus saw them differently: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”  (Matthew 23:27-28)  He saw the insides of the Pharisees: their thought life, self-talk, secret wishes.  People knew them from the outside, but God knew their hearts.  Paul’s list of sins describes our insides, the times we wish to do evil to other people, or to join in to activity contrary to God’s will.  Jesus says, if you lust after another person in your thoughts, you might as well have participated in this activity in reality, for God knows your mind and its imaginations.  We will all be judged on our secret thoughts, our wayward self-talk, our wicked wishes outside of Christ.  Rather than depend on God, we often saturate ourselves with anxiety and disbelief, thinking that God cannot handle our circumstances, disbelieving that all things work together for good to those who believe.  So Paul says, when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment?  Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?  God does not judge us immediately with destruction when we flee from trusting him, instead, He grants us forbearance and patience, gives us time to return to his truth.  We must always remember God is timeless.  Nothing in our lives will escape his righteous eyes.  He sees our past and our present as the same.  Only the blood of Jesus can change that.

We are always under God’s grace, but we are also under the scrutiny of God’s candlelight.  If we were to sell chicken eggs at the local market, we would put our eggs through a candling device. The outward shell of eggs causes all eggs to look similar, but by testing the egg we can see the inside.  If there are imperfections, the egg is discarded; the perfect ones are kept to sell.  Just as Ananias and Sapphira could not escape the penetrating gaze of the Holy Spirit, neither can we escape God’s knowledge about us.  Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.  With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.  Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?  Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold?  And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?  What made you think of doing such a thing?  You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”  When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died.  And great fear seized all who heard what had happened.  (Acts 5:1-5)  God sees all of our imperfections.  Without the covering of the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ, we stand naked before the God of Eternity with everything exposed to him.  In the Old Testament, God often speaks about his judgment on the Jewish people, sometimes depicting them as a woman whose nakedness is exposed to the heathen world.  Under God’s judgment, all will know the discrepancy between our testimonies and the realities of our existence.  All will understand our hearts: the motivations behind our actions, our willingness to exploit others, the secret longings of our sinful nature.  As the Bible says: The Lord does not look at the things people look at.  People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.  (1 Samuel 16:7)  God will not accept imperfection in his domain for imperfections are a cancer to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Faith in Jesus Christ and his works makes us new creatures.  God’s candlelight verifies us as newborn, alive in the Spirit, in the image of God’s Son.  We who trust in Christ have renewed our hearts and minds, not by good works or self-improvement, but by fixing our eyes on the one who loves us and gave his life for us: CHRIST JESUS.  Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  (Hebrews 12:1-2 NASB)  Jesus separates the fleshly man from the spiritual man by circumcising the heart with a sharp two-edged sword.  We no longer live by the energy of the flesh, but by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The old man ceases to exist in God’s eyes, but the new man becomes God’s treasure, transformed by the cross. 

SAVED BY FAITH, we are alive in Christ—a simple proposition, yet greatly profound.  Faith alone accesses the Kingdom of God through the gate Jesus Christ.  There is no other way to eternal life.  The greatest illustration of faith in our opinion is the account of the thief on the cross.  One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah?  Save yourself and us!”  But the other criminal rebuked him.  “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence?  We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve.  But this man has done nothing wrong.”  Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”  (Matthew 23:39-41)  What faith it must have taken for him to look to this man as the Son of God.  They were all in dire circumstances, dying on crosses as finite men.  Hearing Jesus’ groans of agony, the travails of the fleshly Jesus, he still believed in the divine Jesus.  Not considering his rational mind, the thief placed his faith in the power of God through Jesus Christ by saying to the other criminal: Don’t you fear God?  How many of us would have considered Jesus as the Son of God in that situation?  We probably would have been like most of the disciples, absent from the scene, fearing for our lives.  But this thief, expressed unimaginable faith by saying, remember me when you come into your kingdom.  Jesus accepted him.  The thief did not win paradise because of his good works expressed through his life.  No, he would win paradise and identification as a new creature in Christ because of simple faith in the man dying beside him.  The lowly thief had saving faith, a belief in something beyond his rational mind and his present condition.  By asking Jesus to remember him, he verified his faith in the Father God who created everything out of nothing.  He believed the Creator existed and that He lived in Jesus, reflected HIS GLORY through Jesus.  Mankind has struggled from the beginning of time:  Do we believe in God as the creator or do we believe in something our minds can understand that set creation in motion.  This faith issue is glue that causes every page of the Bible to stick together.  From ancient times to the present, man has searched for an answer to creation other than God.  His innate nature is to substitute his reasoning in place of believing in God and his authority.  That is why the Bible explicitly states man’s self-centered nature.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him (Jesus) the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6)  Likewise many New Testament scriptures confirm man’s delinquency: There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.  (Romans 3:11)  Given the state of sinful man and our wayward hearts, none of us should stand in judgment of another, but we should keep our hearts and minds steadfastly on the Lord.  Bless each of you as you follow Christ.

Romans 1:28-31 Every Kind of Wickedness!

Romans 1:28-31  Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.  They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.  They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.  They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;  they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.  Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

In the above passage, Paul continues his exposition on the state of mankind since abandoning God as Creator and Lord.  Since the beginning of time, humans failed to honor God, choosing their own gods, making them in their own image.  Likewise, they chose to worship heavenly bodies or other creatures.  They even made grotesque images to worship from their own imaginations.  Because of this rejection of the Creator, Paul writes, they became filled with every kind of wickedness.  We call this wickedness sin, a willingness to obey the authority of self-will over the will of God.  They suppressed the truth of life by delving into all kinds of evil, greed and depravity.  Of course this self-oriented, wayward life brings judgment from our Father God, for sin brings disharmony and destruction to his creation.  Death is the product of sin.  The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  (Romans 1:18-19)  In the previous breakfast, we wrote about the resulting disharmony of sin to the point of suppressing the natural use of man’s sexuality for unnatural behaviors.  Of course, such an act of sexuality, intercourse with ones own gender, if carried out to its fullest extent, challenges the perpetuation of the human specie.  Perhaps this kind of self-will, self-love, can be considered the pinnacle of man going his own way, choosing his own lifestyle rather than God’s intentions.  But in today’s focus, we can see other challenges that man has ingrained into his own existence, challenges that threaten his welfare, even the survival of his race.  Not only are humans full of all kinds of wickedness, They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.  They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;  they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.  Man’s willingness to follow his own way, his own gods, indicates giving himself over to a depraved mind.  His father is not only Adam, who forsook God’s will and authority in his life, his father is also the Evil One.  As Jesus said to the self-righteous Pharisees, If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God.  I have not come on my own; God sent me.  Why is my language not clear to you?  Because you are unable to hear what I say.  You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires.  (John 8:42-44)  Of course, the Pharisees wanted to kill Jesus at that time.  We might say that we would not want to kill Jesus, but mankind in general has that spirit of destruction within him.  Inherent in man’s nature is a self-willed spirit that rejects God’s spirit, bringing death and disharmony into life.  This is a cancer on man’s soul, brought into his very existence by the sin of Adam, a cancer eventually contaminating all things with death, even nature.  Later in Romans we will read that the whole creation groans to be delivered from this bondage to sin.

Paul’s explicit description of man’s lack of being right with God paints a picture of gloom and darkness without God in the scene.  Obviously, Paul wants the Romans to understand that they need a Savior, someone who can redeem the nature of man, making people right with God the Creator.  Of course, we know who that is: Jesus, the Christ, the Lord.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  (John 3:17)  Jesus came to bring light to that picture of gloom and darkness.   When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  (John 8:12)  We who are IN CHRIST JESUS will never walk in darkness because we will always have the light of life in us.  We will always know who the Creator is; and because of our faith in Jesus’ life and work, we will always be right with God.  As followers of Christ, we have the righteousness of God within us.  Yes, we have all sinned and we still struggle with fleshly waywardness in our lives, but we have a righteousness within us that does not come from our works, but from Christ’s works.   There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  (Romans 3:22-23)  We are justified before God; we do have right standing with him.  As Paul said, we do have the nature of Adam embedded within our lives, but we are not without hope, for Christ has come to redeem us, not to condemn us.  Therefore, whosoever believes in him, will have life eternal, for Jesus has come to bring life and to terminate the cancer of sin.  And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.  If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.  (Philippians 3:9-11)

How wonderful it is to know Christ and the joy He brings to our lives.  Walking with him in the power of the Holy Spirit should put a governor on our flesh.  We should no longer let our fleshly desires rule our lives, not that we are saved by works, but that we honor Christ and the Creator of our lives by avoiding the excesses of the flesh.  Sinfulness, waywardness, unthankfulness lead to sorrow and finally death.  God’s children are not of that mode.  We are those with faith in God and a song in our hearts.  We are those who sing the song of the thankfulness of the redeemed.  I waited patiently for the Lord;  And He inclined to me,  And heard my cry.  He also brought me up out of a horrible pit, Out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, And established my steps.  He has put a new song in my mouth—Praise to our God; Many will see it and fear, And will trust in the Lord.  (Psalm 40:1-3)  As we hold fast to Christ, we live his life the best we can as ambassadors for God to this world.  When the weaknesses of the flesh penetrate our thoughts and behaviors, we look to Jesus.  We give him our temptations, our inappropriate actions.  Life should be joyous because of whom we serve.  He brings harmony in life; He brings creation in life, not destruction.  Jesus came to give life.  Jesus is the truth of life.  Jesus said, The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.  I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.  (John 10:10)  The world hates him as a Savior, for it wants to save itself.  As a wayward child, the world says: “I am in control, I do not need your help Jesus.  I reject your description of our lives.  We can please God by our own efforts.”  The Pharisee spirit is resplendent in the world’s system.  Yet, as we look around, what do we see?  Wars, rumors of wars, poverty, slavery, wickedness of all kinds.  For thousands of years, this kind of activity has gone on, but the world will not repent and turn to the Creator.  Instead, through their own gods, their own activities, their imaginations, they tell God through their words and their deeds, “We do not need your help, your righteousness, your Son.  WE CAN DO IT!”  If you see any of this self-willed attitude in yourself, turn to Jesus, repent, and yield the reins to him.  Jesus will lead you on the path to peace and joy in the Lord.  It is a good thing to return to the joy of your salvation.   

Romans 1:24-27 Worship the Creator!

Romans 1:24-27 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.  They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised.  Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts.  Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.  In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.  Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Man’s desire to serve himself, to please himself, rather than God placed him in the position of gratifying his flesh.  This gratification took on many forms, but one easily identified form is the sin of sexual licentiousness.  Men and women started to lust after their own gender, creating confusion in the basic desire of any being to procreate its own specie.  The main point Paul addresses here and wants the people to consider is sexual impurity and the concept of not relying upon God’s truth.  He is pointing to the tendency of people to turn from worshipping their Creator God to bowing down to the things of this earth.  When we lose sight of our Lord and stop praising him with our lives, this idol worship that we discussed in the last breakfast permeates every area of our lives.  Of course sin spreads throughout our choices and our actions, and soon we see the effects of man’s moral degeneration in his sexual behaviors.  As we will read next week, Paul will go on to say, They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.  (Romans 1:29)  The pathway that leads us away from God is a slippery downhill slope.  We do not fall by inches but by leaps and bounds as we give ourselves over to the world’s way of living, for the temptations are many.  As the Bible says, For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.  (1 John 2:16)  Just as the Children of Israel quickly lost sight of God and built a golden calf to worship in the wilderness, Paul could see that the nature of men was to stray easily into hedonistic pursuits without God as their focus for living.

As Christians one of the most miraculous aspects of our salvation remains the Good News that Jesus died to save sinners.  We possess this marvelous knowledge:  But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  (Romans 5:8)  This amazing mercy and grace poured out at the cross through the shed blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God demonstrates how greatly we are loved.  We can rejoice and be exceedingly glad.  If we consider the realities of our position in the family of God as joint heirs with Christ, we will remain true to God, following his desires and his will for our lives.  Many scriptures have been set to music because they are an encouragement to our hearts and minds.  As we meditate on the Lord, these songs bring hope and light into our days and nights such as: Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.  (1 John 3:1)  Many times in the chaos and troubles of living, we need reminders of who we are in Christ and who He is in us.  One of the songs we sing at church says, “I am a child of God.”  We need to remember what that means and the price Jesus paid for our position in God’s family.  Our adoption papers were signed with the blood of Jesus.  He willingly went to Mount Calvary and said, “Not my will, but yours be done, Father.”  Today’s verses go far beyond sexual immorality to mankind’s innate abandonment of God from the beginning of time, his desire to follow his own will.  From Adam until the present day, the hearts of people have whored after fleshly desires.  Men and women have shifted their allegiance from honoring God and his authority to promoting their own self-will and power.  In the Old Testament, the people responded to the Law with, “We will do it.  We will follow your laws.”  This is the cry of a stubborn two-year-old, rejecting his mother’s help with a task beyond his grasp: “I can do it?”  As with the unknowing child, we will fail miserably, but we should know better.  We should know we need our God; we should know we cannot fulfill his part of the covenant.  Still we strive to find the answers to life’s problems, to prove to God our knowledge and wisdom are great.  We determine to live in peace and harmony through our own abilities and end up in strife and disharmony.  We have always needed God’s help.  The Law was his help—to bring obedience, but we could not fulfill its demands.  Yet we stood in defiance, saying we could do it ourselves, not understanding our human weaknesses compared with his strength.  Now this foolishness is even greater when the people of God reject the strength of the Lord given to us through Christ by the Holy Spirit, thinking once again, “We will do it.”  We will give God some of our time and some of our money, but in reality we are trying to live through our own intellect, insights, and abilities.  Our only hope is to return to the God of our salvation: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.  (Isaiah 53:6)

Yes, in Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Jesus, the Bible also tells us that Jesus was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.  (Isaiah 53:3)  Jesus was the perfect Lamb of God, giving all for a lost world.  He was in no way like the false gods of God’s people, the gods they turned to so easily throughout the ages.  They worshipped gods of nature and gods of the sun, moon, and stars.  Continually, they turned back to Baal and Ashtoreth, gods with strong ties to prostitution, deviant sexuality.  The sexual promiscuity in the temples to these gods was seen as a defiant fist raised against God by those who worshipped there.  Yet Jesus prayed over his people saying, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”  (Matthew 23:37)  We find it hard to believe that God so loved us that He would be willing to offer us redemption given the depth and the breadth of our rebellion against him.  One of the reasons we experience difficulty understanding the love of God for a fallen creation is that we lack the faithfulness we find in his divine nature.  In raising children, how many parents lose patience with minor indiscretions, let alone the major errors committed by their children.  But the Bible tells us, God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  (1 Corinthians 1:9)  Here again is another aspect of God that enters into many gospel songs:  Great is thy faithfulness!  Song writers through the decades have set to music the faithfulness of God.  God is a good God, and He is good to his children.  As we raised our children, we tried to show them grace instead of judgment.  We prayed with them often and pointed them to Jesus as the answer to life’s problems.  We also made a point of saying we were sorry when we were wrong.  The main foundation for interactions in our home was to try to treat each other as we wanted to be treated.  We were amazed how well that worked in a broad range of situations.  Even a very young child can understand: Is that the way you want to be treated?  If a brother hit a brother, we might say, “Brothers are for loving, not hitting.  Would you want your brother to hit you?  Of course not.  Now talk about what happened and how you could handle it better.”  Real parenting takes time and effort.  You do not bow down to a statue made of stone.  James tells us that if we lack wisdom, we can ask God for wisdom from on high.  He also explains:  But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.  (James 3:17)  We need not throw our hands up in despair when we do not know what to do next.  We have the Holy Spirit within us, the Counselor, our Guide through the exigencies of life.  If you are wandering, tempted, unsure, failing, or falling today because of the sinful and hurtful desires of your heart, turn to Jesus.  He is waiting for you with arms open wide.  Give everything to him, for He cares for you! 

Romans 1:19-23 God Is Made Plain!

Romans 1:19-23  The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.  For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.  For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Today's scriptures point out the rebellious nature of mankind.  Even in the beginning when man was close to the initial act of creation, people chose their own way.  They knew creation was a product of God and his nature because God made himself plain to them.  Mankind and all that is was created by God and through God; yet, even from the very start, man chose not to honor God by giving him the respect due The Creator.  For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.  Even in the Garden, this Spirit of self-will raised its ugly head.  Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made.  He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”  The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”  “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman.  “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."  (Genesis 3:1-5)  To be like God, to replace God in the universe and in existence, entered the heart of man almost from the beginning of creation.  Instead of being subservient to God's authority, man became his own master, placing himself above God, choosing his own path, not God's way.  Of course this decision brought God's immediate judgment, for the cancer of sin entered into existence with man's anti-God choice.  To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat of it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”  (Genesis 3:17-19)  Our mortal bodies will all return to the ground eventually unless Jesus returns to rapture us to heaven, and even then we will be changed from the mortal to the immortal.  This shroud of flesh will be left here to turn to dust.  The wrath of God, the just response to sin, to rebellion, has been revealed from heaven since the beginning of time.  Man faces the consequences of sin every day: the struggle to exist and then eventually death.  Man is without excuse, For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.  The intricacies of life itself should be testimony enough for us to know that a divine eternal entity created all that we see.  

But as we know, from creation onward, people chose not to respect God's will and authority.  For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Instead of honoring and respecting THE GOD they could see around them, they chose to honor and revere gods made from their own imaginations.  These gods were chosen to honor their own fallen state.  They begin to honor things God had made such as the sun, moon, stars, men, women, animals, serpents.  They worshipped distorted perversions of God such as gods and goddesses of wind, war, sex, and the like.  The friezes on their temples displayed gargoyles: grotesque human and animal figures, something of their own making for them to fear or worship.  From the beginning, their hearts became so wicked, so anti-God, that they were willing to serve anything except the God of creation.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.  Even the children of Israel were caught up in idol worship.  After God delivered them from slavery in Egypt through mighty supernatural events, they chose to serve their idols rather than God.  When Moses went up Mount Sinai to worship God, the Israelites quickly turned to their own gods, made from their own hands.  They willingly worshipped something they created rather than praising the God of creation, who made all things out of nothing.  They were willing to lift up a golden calf made by Aaron from items they carried out of Egypt, rather than worship the God who allowed them to cross the Red Sea on dry land.  Jesus came to reveal the one true God that delivered the Children of Israel.  He said: Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.  (John 17:3)  Yet the heart of man is desperately wicked.  God will provide miracles in people's lives, and they will know it; but soon, too soon, they will return to something they have created.  This is the curse of man's sinful heart; and for that, God reserves his judgment.  Before God commissioned Noah to build the ark, he saw the sinfulness of the world: And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.  (Genesis 6:5) 

In our modern world, most humans do not turn to actual physical idols to worship.  But our lives are filled with idols that we do not recognize as such.  Most of us would not find the meaning of life in some sort of image that we revere.  No, what we consider the essence of life revolves around our involvement with the many diversions in life: work, entertainment, recreation, social activities, our commitment to getting ahead in life.  Our days are busy, our nights are short.  After our overly filled days, television and our electronics devices keep us up far into the night.  We spend our time engrossed in these activities.  Often our souls feel famished, out-of-sorts, empty, despite our hectic existence.  We question the purpose of life: is this all there is?  At times, when we feel a need for something more, we might attend a religious service or read an inspirational book or listen to some guru on public television.  In many ways this is akin to idol worship.  We go somewhere to find God in something.  We go to some temple, church, book, or person to find God.  We hope God or something like him will be there.  We long for food for our souls, manna to satisfy and to comfort, peace in this chaotic world, a reason to live other than participating in the mundane activities of life.  Of course this search to find God in something or in someplace is also idol worship.  The Bible says that those who are new creatures BY FAITH IN CHRIST have a relationship that is INTIMATE and constant.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!  (2 Corinthian 5:17)   As new creatures in Christ, we are forever in God's presence.  We are not idol worshippers, those who have to stand or bow before an idol.  We also are not those who have to fill their lives with worldly clutter to find meaning.  No, we have a God who defines the meaning of life by saying to all who are born again, "I am with you always.  You are mine.  I will never leave you."  He gives us this hope with a still small voice.  (I Kings 19:12)  We are not idol worshippers.  We do not fill our lives up to avoid his voice; we do not wander someplace to find him.  No, He is with us always, to comfort, to guide us through life.  Jesus said, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”  (Matthew 28:20)  Since God has made it plain to us that He is God, and He has sent his Son to save us from sin, let us worship him wholeheartedly while it is yet day!