Thursday's Reading: Romans 3

So I had this conversation with my son this week. He was in trouble on the bus for speaking after he was asked to "be quiet." I had flash-backs to my childhood. He kept saying how he "hates rules" and they are "boring" (I'm not sure he even knows what boring is - try being raised without cable, Game cube, and toys sticking out of your tail). Anyway, in that moment, I was forced to justify why rules are important to us.

Paul is spending some time talking about the "law" in Romans - "it's purpose is to keep people from having excuses and to bring the entire world into judgement before God." We need the law to understand good from bad, righteous from evil. But Paul reasons that the more we get to know God, the more we realize the magnitude of our sin. It's good to have a Calvinist approach to theology when considering this ... we Wesleyan's use the term total depravity (hopeless sinners) but we don't really get it. As long as we are living on earth we are living in a sin "cesspool". Who can help us?

That's the beauty of the rest of the chapter ... Christ took our punishment! Praise the Lord! "We are made right in God's sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we all can be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we have done." (V22) Paul just says it so well in the latter part of this chapter.

Anyone interested in reaching out to friends and neighbors with the Good News, needs to spend some time here! "There is only one God, and there is only one way of being accepted by him."