I am sure.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39

I am sure.

I am secure.

In the love of Christ I stand

secured by His saving hand.

Nothing can separate me…

Nothing can humiliate me…

Nothing can intimidate me…

When the Spirit of God regenerates me.

I am sure

nothing will lure

me from His eternal hold.

Saved forever by Christ’s blood.

Jesus always holds me dear…

Jesus always calms my fear…

Jesus always keeps me near…

His grace poured on me now and here.

I am sure.

I need nothing more.

His Word and Spirit lead me on.

Future glory is what my hope rests upon.

I see heaven ahead…

I can smile at death’s bed…

I am no longer afraid…

God will always keep me as He has said.

I am sure.

I am secure.

Christ I adore.

I need nothing more!

conflicted

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Romans 7:15

As much as I want to follow Jesus and do the things that please Him, I have to fight my self just to do so. I need Jesus. My sin has separated me from God and only Jesus can take me to God by His sacrifice, His righteous life, and resurrection from the dead. I really want to do what He asks His followers to do, yet there is a strong inclination in me toward selfishness, sinful actions, pride, and maintaining my own control. So I cannot do what I want (obey and follow Jesus) under the force of my own power. I mess it up. I fail to understand. I choose poorly. I please self. I am a sinner in need of a righteousness and a power that are not my own in order to stand a chance at any kind of Christian commitment and maturity. My only hope is in the power and person of Jesus!

That realization is what Paul explains about himself in both Romans 7 and 8. He too was spiritually conflicted. He too needed to win a hard fought battle with a sinful nature that won out in His heart more times than not. He too needed the Word of God and the Spirit of God to work in and with the gospel to lead him from casualty of battle to victor beyond this battle.

Paul made these statements about His conflicted soul:

1) Sin indwelt him still, leading to these wrong choices. Nothing good was to be found in that part of him (Romans 7:17-18).

2) Wanting to do right is not enough by itself. He delighted in the Law of God, yet still would do what was wrong (Romans 7:21-22)

3) He fought a spiritual war internally every day. Only Jesus Christ as Lord can deliver him in that battle (Romans 7:23-25).

4) The Holy Spirit of God, through His sanctifying presence and purpose delivers believers from the consequences and the control of that battle (Roman’s 8:1-4).

5) The Spirit of God works with the gospel doing in us what we ourselves are powerless to do. We are transformed and set free in the gospel to be led by the Spirit, not dominated by the sin we hate (Romans 8:3-11).

Lord,

Although I am in this constant war inside myself, I believe You settle the conflict through Your saving work, Your Spirit’s presence in me, and Your Word’s direction for me. Do in me what I cannot do myself. Be the power to defeat my sin and direct me to follow You, Jesus!

Amen

I died with Christ. I will live with Christ.

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

Romans 6:8

I have, in my old sinful self, already died. I have died with Christ. He took my sins upon Himself. He bore them to the cross and there suffered my hell so I could have His righteous life. I am now alive in a new life through His resurrection completing His atoning work for me. These two facts are true: 1) I have already died the worst part of death through Christ. 2) I am now alive through Christ’s resurrection and I will live even beyond my last breath here on earth to live with Him forever! I choose to remember these simple truths with two acrostics:

D - Dead to sin.

I - Invigorated by Christ.

E - Exalting my Savior.

D - Done with sin.

L - Loving Jesus in my new life.

I - Inviting others to believe.

V -Very grateful for all of this new life.

E - Exchanging my life for Christ’s.

O Lord,

The one who has died has been set free… from the power of sin, from the penalty of sin, and in eternity, from the presence of it! In Christ I have died to sin. In Christ I am given new life now. And in Christ I will one day, in resurrection, live eternally free from all my limits, my hang-ups, my failures, and my transgressions. Thank You Lord for dying for me, living in me, and giving me life forever!

Amen

the gospel I believe

Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

Romans 5:18

The problem with humanity is summed up in a three letter word not popularly discussed these days: SIN. And the root of that problem is not popularly believed these days either: Adam, the first human, chose to disobey God. The Bible presents these two situations as absolute historical fact. God created Adam and Eve as perfect people. He placed them in Eden with commands to rule the planet as He wished and as they saw fit. He placed just one warning not to eat of one tree. And by deception, Eve ate, and in direct disobedience, Adam transgressed God’s only restriction.

This is the “one trespass” that brought so much sin upon us all and condemns every person born on the planet yet today. We are trespassers. We are all transgressors. We are all rule-breakers. We are all selfish. We are all easily deceived. We are all sinners. We need a Savior, for we are all equally condemned by inherited sin and by our own sinful thoughts, attitudes, and actions.

But God sent His Son Who acted like a Second Adam. He lived a perfect life. Jesus never sinned. He perfectly obeyed the Father. And He chose to take all the sin of all humanity for all the ages upon Himself at the cross. In His one righteous act He was condemned so that His righteous life could be exchanged for our sinful transgressions. And now resurrected and interceding for all who trust in His sacrifice, Jesus is the justifier and the life-giver to all who believe in Him.

This is the gospel I believe. It is the most important thing that ever happened in the world. Jesus saves those who acknowledge sin, turn to Him, believe His saving, exchanging work for them, and bow to Him as Savior and Lord. This salvation I believe is the most important part of me! Thank God that one act of righteousness by Jesus leads to justification and life for all who believe!

Romans 5:19

For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

faith credited as righteousness

For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith.

Romans 4:13

God spoke with a childless old man in the most promising way possible. He spoke to a homeless man who left all that was familiar to obey a simple call to go to a land that God alone would show him. Eventually God gave him one son in that promise. And eventually God gave him one family cemetery plot as his only possession. All the while God kept a bigger vision burning in old Abraham’s brain: descendants more numerous than sand on a beach… an inheritance that would bless the entire planet.

Faith led an insignificant, childless, homeless, ancient man to become a “father of faith” to us all. The Jews were born of him physically. The nations, through the Savior Who arrived at the right time through Abraham’s descendants, were blessed by him spiritually. And faith was the means to it all. He is “the father of all who believe” (Romans 4:11). Faith was the root of all that God has made righteous as Abraham believed what God said and in faithful obedience heeded God’s call in a lifetime of trust (Romans 4:9b).

Lord,

By faith I come to You today. By faith in the gospel story I am also blessed. By trusting in the One Who is the Promise to all, the One Whom Abraham longed for, the One Who is the only way all nations of this world are blessed… by faith in Jesus Who lived, died, rose again, and lives now… by that faith I am forever blessed.

Thank You for the life lesson of that old wandering dreamer who held firmly to Your call, even as he significantly struggled to see Your promise kept. Your grace met him by faith even in a few faltering failures! He conceived a son with the wrong woman. You blessed Him still. He minimized his marriage. You protected what he trivialized. And You reminded Abraham of what the real promises were. May Abraham’s faith grow in me, now credited with Christ’s righteousness, so this world may also rejoice in faith as the gospel of Jesus continues to transform it!

Amen

I want to do good.

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Romans 3:20

I want to do good

     but I can’t

By God’s Law

     I stand condemned

Sinner in action

     enemy of the Holy

I know my sin

     reading Your Law

I want to be good

     but I can’t

Shown my sin

     by Your right standard

Time and again

     I fall far short

I’m trapped by sin

     according to the Law

I cannot do good

     even what I want

is tainted by self

     broken as I am

Incapable of righteousness 

     not as You are

Broken, powerless, empty

     on Jesus I call

You are my good

     Your righteous life

Now exchanged for

      all my impotence

Your saving work

     enabling me to please God

Your life for mine

     the only good

In Christ I do good

     empowered by His Spirit

Enabled in every good work

     Jesus pleases the Father

I yield my thoughts

     surrender my heart

Love God in all my strength

     made new to do good!

Legalism and paganism lead to the same place.

Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

Romans 2:3-4

Christ does not turn people into judgmental jerks. The salvation that Jesus brings has no intention of creating self-righteous, legalistic, finger-pointing, rude, and unkind people. In fact, Paul argues that such attitudes are as equally lost as the most despicable immoral pagan… that these judgmental actions are in need of redemption, and leave a person outside the saving work of Jesus. Christian faith DOES NOT produce judgmental holier-than-thou hypocrites!

In Romans two, after opening his masterful dissertation on the gospel with an indictment upon the gentiles who are totally culpable before God for their sinful choices and lifestyles, Paul turns his attention to the Jewish world in the second chapter. The “you” who “judge those” were the Jews. Paul had risen to the highest levels of Jewish religious leadership before his conversion to Christianity. He knew that the Jews believed that their unique covenant relationship with God alone insulated them from His wrath and cleared them of any need to repent. But they instead stood guilty before God EXACTLY like the gentiles and EXACTLY for the same things! Paul says that the Jews did the same sins the gentiles have done. It’s a rough list by the way:

• Suppression of God’s revelation of Himself and a hard turn to replacing the worship of God with idolatry (Romans 1:18-23).
• Worship of the sensual, the sexual, and the created thing rather than worship of the Creator THROUGH the enjoyment of His creation (Romans 1:24-25).
• Surrender to passions that led to sexual shamelessness and “anything goes” sexuality that corrupted God’s design (Romans 1:26-28).
• Every kind of divisiveness, conflict, hate, and evil against humanity (Romans 1:29-32).

Self-righteous unbelief of the gospel focuses on these lists, thinks itself better, but yet harbors in the heart (and even in actions) the desire to do them all as well. It presumes upon kindness, forbearance, and patience to demand outward conformity! It will rage in anger for appearances. Every time I see a sign-carrying zealot I assume that their personal browser history (electronically and internally) would show a very shameful need for the gospel that they will never publicly recognize or personally admit. How many outwardly religious will find themselves surprised in eternity in a very warm hell? I know that in my legalistic hyper-fundie days, I was often far from Jesus. Paul says unless the gospel affects the kindness, forbearance, and patience of God toward other sinners… a person is guilty before God… as lost as a pagan.