The purpose of the law is not to make us righteous but to make us become conscious of sins.
For example, does any government around the world make laws to make its citizens become better people?
The answer is no.
Many laws have been made and applied throughout the history of the world, and not one of them made people become better people.
It's the same way with the law of God. The law of God doesn't make us to be better people but rather make us conscious of our faults, greed, adulterous heart, idolatry, and lust.
How then do we become better people?
Well the question is wrong, because God says there is no one who does good, no not one.
Everyone turned to his own evil desires, not necessarily criminal minds, but idolatrous minds, ignoring God and worshipping something or someone other than God, for example, money, power, status or sex.
God says, He declares us righteous when we put our trust in Him.
Putting our trust in God means we accept God as who He is.
We accept everything about God.
We accept the benevolent, all-loving God.
We accept that He is good.
By putting our trust in Him, we become like Him knowingly or unknowingly.
Now I think about it, I haven't actually paid the price for all the countless number of sins that I committed in the past.
I should rather say, "How can God be so unjust as to overlook all the sins that I have committed whether they be small or big in the world's eyes?"
"Is God unjust?" "Is He selfish, unjust and wicked like some corrupt leader, government or heinous criminal in the history of the world?"
Well, He did punish the wicked for all the sins they had/have committed, in Jesus. Jesus paid that price, and now God commands us to believe that sacrifice provided for us.
We'll pay the price for our sins in two ways in the end.
Either Jesus pays for us on the cross, or we pay in the eternal torment of hell.
Everlasting life or everlasting death.
Everlasting joy or everlasting misery.
Everlasting fellowship with God whose love surpasses all knowledge, or everlasting separation from God whose wrath would be fully unveiled in the unquenchable lake of fire, reserved for Satan and demons, and also for those who rejected His love.
God is love. Love is God.
Without God, without love.
I breath God, and God breathes me.
Without God, I am nothing.
With God, I am all that I am and can be.
"God presented Jesus as a sacrifice of forgiveness, through belief in his blood/death.
He did this to demonstrate His justice, because in His patience He had left the sins every soul that ever lived committed beforehand unpunished. He did this to demonstrate His justice / fairness at the present time, so as to be just/fair and the one who justifies the sinful (i.e. every soul that ever lived, lives or will live) who trust in Jesus."
Romans 3:25, 26
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Romans 2
One big misconception we have about God is that He's a forgiving God who overlooks evil.
Yes, He is a forgiving God, and He does forgive sins but He does not overlook sins.
He will judge both the righteous and the evil.
He will reward those who do good and punish those who do evil.
God is a just God. He is not a God who judges partially or misjudge.
He knows our hearts and all the secrets of our hearts will be revealed when the Lord Jesus returns and judges us on that final day of judgement.
All of us sins and we are all by nature under the wrath and judgement of God, and this is perfectly understandable and right.
Should the murderers, rapists, liars, slanderer, adulterers, idolaters and God-haters enter the heaven? And completely destroy the society of the heaven? No, because that would be unloving of anyone, yea, unloving of God to let them harm the people who desire to live in harmony and love God and love each other.
For example, what if there's no police system in any government of the world? What if the murderers, rapist, liars, slanderers, adulterers and insurrectionists were all tolerated and by no means, judged?
Would that nation stand? Would you and I be able to live in that kind of society? Would that be loving of anyone?
What if someone tries to kill you, rape you, lie to you, slander your name, cheat on you and replace you in your work and home? Or what if that person tries to do these things to someone you love, your family, spouse or children?
How horrendous that would be, indeed!!! What if they really did these things to someone you love the most on the earth? Would you let them go as if nothing happened? No, by no means!!! You'd seek revenge!!!
This is what God did. God indeed punished evil and sin by sending His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, although He was innocent and sinless, chose to be placed in the position of a heinous criminal and died as a murderer, rapist, liar, adulterer, slanderer, and idolater, that we are.
And now when anyone believes that Jesus died in their place for their sins, God says they are righteous because they believed in the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, His Son, and they're now declared to be the children of God.
The Holy Spirit comes into their lives and they are new people.
God changes their hearts. God changes your heart the moment you stop your stubbornness running away and avoiding God, and finally take that step and do the most reasonable thing on the face of the earth, that is to love God, and put your entire trust in that God who loved you enough, so much, that He sent the Son of God, Jesus who loved you Himself as well, to die on the cross to bear your faults, sins, crime and evil, so that you no longer live in fear of the punishment, judgement and wrath of God.
Jews believe they're the chosen people of God because they're the ones who received the law of God and receive circumcision and follow the law of God, that's only partly true.
God says, it is those who are inwardly Jews, that are true Jews or the true people of God.
The chosen people of God are not people who have a specific nationality or received a specific holy scripture or had a specific history related to God.
That's only partly right.
The true people of God are those who are inwardly transformed or being transformed by the power, love, grace and mercy of God, into the image of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Romans 8:29
Yes, He is a forgiving God, and He does forgive sins but He does not overlook sins.
He will judge both the righteous and the evil.
He will reward those who do good and punish those who do evil.
God is a just God. He is not a God who judges partially or misjudge.
He knows our hearts and all the secrets of our hearts will be revealed when the Lord Jesus returns and judges us on that final day of judgement.
All of us sins and we are all by nature under the wrath and judgement of God, and this is perfectly understandable and right.
Should the murderers, rapists, liars, slanderer, adulterers, idolaters and God-haters enter the heaven? And completely destroy the society of the heaven? No, because that would be unloving of anyone, yea, unloving of God to let them harm the people who desire to live in harmony and love God and love each other.
For example, what if there's no police system in any government of the world? What if the murderers, rapist, liars, slanderers, adulterers and insurrectionists were all tolerated and by no means, judged?
Would that nation stand? Would you and I be able to live in that kind of society? Would that be loving of anyone?
What if someone tries to kill you, rape you, lie to you, slander your name, cheat on you and replace you in your work and home? Or what if that person tries to do these things to someone you love, your family, spouse or children?
How horrendous that would be, indeed!!! What if they really did these things to someone you love the most on the earth? Would you let them go as if nothing happened? No, by no means!!! You'd seek revenge!!!
This is what God did. God indeed punished evil and sin by sending His Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, although He was innocent and sinless, chose to be placed in the position of a heinous criminal and died as a murderer, rapist, liar, adulterer, slanderer, and idolater, that we are.
And now when anyone believes that Jesus died in their place for their sins, God says they are righteous because they believed in the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, His Son, and they're now declared to be the children of God.
The Holy Spirit comes into their lives and they are new people.
God changes their hearts. God changes your heart the moment you stop your stubbornness running away and avoiding God, and finally take that step and do the most reasonable thing on the face of the earth, that is to love God, and put your entire trust in that God who loved you enough, so much, that He sent the Son of God, Jesus who loved you Himself as well, to die on the cross to bear your faults, sins, crime and evil, so that you no longer live in fear of the punishment, judgement and wrath of God.
Jews believe they're the chosen people of God because they're the ones who received the law of God and receive circumcision and follow the law of God, that's only partly true.
God says, it is those who are inwardly Jews, that are true Jews or the true people of God.
The chosen people of God are not people who have a specific nationality or received a specific holy scripture or had a specific history related to God.
That's only partly right.
The true people of God are those who are inwardly transformed or being transformed by the power, love, grace and mercy of God, into the image of the Son of God, Jesus Christ.
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Romans 8:29
Romans 1
Paul, to the Romans.
Paul greets the Romans and encourages them to be faithful to God, and Paul's delighted to hear that the news of Romans' faith is being reported all over the world.
Paul emphasises the importance of the power of the gospel of God that saves both Jews and Gentiles.
The Righteous person lives by faith.
The Righteous person is a person who puts his entire trust in God who made him/her and the entire universe.
It is a relationship between the trusted and the trustee.
God and His people whom He loves.
God created people for Himself, exactly to have a perfect relationship with them.
But knowing the fact that our breakage in this holy relationship would result in death, we still did it. We broke away from our Creator and chose the created, and started to worship the created which looked beautiful and desirable to possess. We forgot God, God let us go that way.
God did not force us to stay with Him which would be unloving of Him.
He chose to suffer the breakage in the relationship, yet He never gave up on us.
He let us explore evil, perverted and idolatrous.
We started to worship the sun, moon and the stars.
We also made gods out of wood, stone, marbles and animals.
We believed what eyes saw, and ignored what our hearts told us.
We started to believe in the physical realm, rather than listening to the quiet voice of God who speaks to our conscience and dreams.
We exploited God by turning his gifts to gods.
The gifts God bestowed upon us became our gods; money, power and sex.
Not bad or evil in themselves but our obsession with money, power and sex became the trap that trapped us in confusion, addiction and deception.
We forgot God, yet God never forgot us.
He's still waiting for us. He still gives us the hints of His presence here and there.
The sky declares the glory of God.
Psalm 19:1
Romans 1:20
Paul greets the Romans and encourages them to be faithful to God, and Paul's delighted to hear that the news of Romans' faith is being reported all over the world.
Paul emphasises the importance of the power of the gospel of God that saves both Jews and Gentiles.
The Righteous person lives by faith.
The Righteous person is a person who puts his entire trust in God who made him/her and the entire universe.
It is a relationship between the trusted and the trustee.
God and His people whom He loves.
God created people for Himself, exactly to have a perfect relationship with them.
But knowing the fact that our breakage in this holy relationship would result in death, we still did it. We broke away from our Creator and chose the created, and started to worship the created which looked beautiful and desirable to possess. We forgot God, God let us go that way.
God did not force us to stay with Him which would be unloving of Him.
He chose to suffer the breakage in the relationship, yet He never gave up on us.
He let us explore evil, perverted and idolatrous.
We started to worship the sun, moon and the stars.
We also made gods out of wood, stone, marbles and animals.
We believed what eyes saw, and ignored what our hearts told us.
We started to believe in the physical realm, rather than listening to the quiet voice of God who speaks to our conscience and dreams.
We exploited God by turning his gifts to gods.
The gifts God bestowed upon us became our gods; money, power and sex.
Not bad or evil in themselves but our obsession with money, power and sex became the trap that trapped us in confusion, addiction and deception.
We forgot God, yet God never forgot us.
He's still waiting for us. He still gives us the hints of His presence here and there.
The sky declares the glory of God.
Psalm 19:1
Romans 1:20
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