The 260 Journey

Day 122

Today’s Reading: Romans 5

In today’s reading, we land on Romans 5 and see a different kind of praise. Praise that I don’t think is done in the church. It’s a new kind of praise for your repertoire.

God gives us to much to praise. In Romans 5:1-2, Paul reminds us of the greatest thing to thank God for: “Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:1-2).

The Message takes the last phase, "exult in hope of the glory of God," and paraphrases it: “standing tall and shouting our praise.” We praise God that we have peace with God through Jesus. That last part is really important: “through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Not through our promises or our good deeds, but through what Jesus has done on the cross. We don’t get anything from God unless it is through Jesus Christ.

In June 2006, Warren Buffett, the world’s second-richest man at the time, announced that he would donate 85 percent of his forty-four-billion-dollar fortune to five charitable foundations. Commenting on this extreme level of generosity, Buffett said: “There is more than one way to get to heaven, but this is a great way.”

Sorry, Warren, that just isn’t true. You may know a lot about investments, but you don’t know much about heaven. Religion says, "If I change, God will love me." The gospel says, "God’s love changes people." This is a blessing worthy of praising God.

But it isn’t this praise that I struggle with. My problem is with the second praise:

Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God. And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope. (Romans 5:1-4)

Or as The Message says, “We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us.” Are you kidding me? Exult in our tribulations? I can praise Him for grace and peace—but not for tribulations.

How can I exalt when things are falling apart?

How can I worship when I’m crying on the inside?

How can I dance when I am hurting?

What I have learned is that praise has nothing to do with music. Songs may help, but we don’t need them to praise God. Praise goes deeper than a melody line. When we praise God in trials, it means we know something beyond the music. We see a little further than the present.

What do we see? That something is on the other side of our painful situations, for “tribulation brings about . . .” something that could not come from music. Paul says that proven character is on the other side. Perseverance is on the other side. Hope is on the other side.

That means the music in our church doesn’t have to be that good to praise Him. We can praise God for the other side of our painful tribulation.

Romans 5:1-2 praise happens every Sunday. It’s the Romans 5:3-4 praise at which I need to get better.

Perhaps you’ve heard the saying, “There are two times to praise the Lord: when you feel like it, and when you don’t.” Essentially, when we praise we are saying what David said in Psalm 34:1: “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.”

Let’s add Romans 5:3-4 praise to our repertoire this Sunday—and every day. Even in our tribulations, we can exult God.

Day 121

Today’s Reading: Romans 4

Romans 4 is just as much a faith chapter as is Hebrews 11, which gets called the hall of faith. Romans 4 gives us a ground level look of the steps of faith of the father of faith, Abraham. Paul shows us a specific situation Abraham had to walk out in faith and how he did it. And then Paul encourages us to “follow in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham” (verse 12).

Let me take you to the dead of winter in the Midwest. Overnight a foot of snow has fallen, and today, you have to trudge through that snow as you walk to the train or bus. In that much snow, you don’t step in fresh snow, you step in steps—the footprints of people who went before you. They left a track that makes it a bit easier for you to negotiate the terrain. The easiest way to walk then is to put your feet where feet have been. Step in their steps and it makes the journey easier. So let’s look for those steps that Abraham already laid for us, and step in his steps.

Let’s first refresh our memories about the story that underlies Abraham’s steps of faith. God promised Abraham and Sarah, his wife, a baby. The problem: he was one hundred years old and she was ninety. I’m not a doctor, but I think this is a problem . . . unless you have an even bigger God involved in the situation. And Abraham did.

What steps did Abraham leave for us to walk in?

First, faith doesn’t ignore the raw and discouraging facts that are staring us in the face. Real faith is able to look at what really exists. This is the kind of faith Abraham had: “Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb” (Romans 4:19).

Abraham contemplated. That means he looked at the facts carefully and with great deliberation, looking at every possibility, leaving nothing out. Here is what Abraham knew to be the facts: In regards to himself, at one hundred years old, his body was as good as dead. Regarding his wife, Sarah, at ninety years old, her womb was dead.

Smith Wigglesworth once said, “I am not moved by what I see. I am moved only by what I believe.” Faith looks at the situation and faces it. And Abraham’s situation looked impossible.

Second, faith finds good footing in God’s Word. I have a Bible that puts in capital letters any Old Testament passage quoted in the New Testament. In verses 17 and 18, that happens twice. It is Abraham going back to what God told him. The two times the capital letters are used are God speaking to Abraham:

(As it is written, “A father of many natIons I have made you”) in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist. In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”

As it was written about Abraham, “A father of many nations I have made you.” That is future. But in the present, he was father of no one.

You can be honest about what the situation looks like. But you then must find yourself speaking more about what God says to your situation in the Word of God. Staying close to God’s Word will help you speak into future instead of complaining about your present circumstances. Fill your mouth with what He promised, His Word.

Finally, the God you believe in will determine your faith level. There is a biblical phrase used many times about Abraham: “Abraham believed God.” It is used all over the Bible—from Genesis to Romans, Galatians to James. But what makes the phrase valid is that there is another phrase associated with Abraham in the Bible just like this one. It’s in 2 Chronicles, Isaiah, and James. And I think it has something to do with the first phrase. The second phrase determined his faith level. It is friend of God. Friend of God makes belief in God easy.

Abraham could say, “Regardless of what circumstances I am facing, my Friend is with me.” The God Abraham believed in was his Friend. He trusted his Friend.

That’s why when you connect Abraham’s raw circumstances with his faith in his Friend, you get these verses that The Passion Translation makes come alive:

In spite of being nearly one hundred years old when the promise of having a son was made, his faith was so strong that it could not be undermined by the fact that he and Sarah were incapable of conceiving a child. He never stopped believing God’s promise, for he was made strong in his faith to father a child. And because he was mighty in faith and convinced that God had all the power needed to fulfill his promises, Abraham glorified God! (Romans 4:19-20, TPT)

Edna Butterfield tells one of my favorite stories of what faith is. Her husband, Ron, works with teenage children who have severe learning disabilities. And Ron started looking at his students’ capabilities rather than their limitations, so he got them to play chess, restore furniture, and repair electrical appliances. Most important, he taught them to believe in themselves. Young Bobby was one of those boys. And he soon proved how well he had learned that last lesson of belief. One day he brought in a broken toaster to repair. He carried the toaster tucked under one arm and a half-loaf of bread under the other.

That’s faith.

The broken toaster of Romans 4—that’s the age of Abraham and Sarah.

The loaf of bread of Romans 4—that’s painting the baby’s room blue, because it’s going to be a boy, and they will name that little loaf of bread . . . Isaac.

Day 120

Today’s Reading: Romans 3

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin lectures throughout the United States on the positive and negative impacts of words. He often asks audiences if they could go twenty-four hours without saying any unkind words to, or about, another person. More often than not, only a few people raise their hands. He tells everyone else,

All of you who can’t answer "yes" . . . must recognize how serious a problem you have. Because if I asked you to go for twenty-four hours without drinking liquor, and you said, “I can’t do that,” I’d tell you, “Then you must recognize that you’re an alcoholic.” And if I asked you to go for twenty-four hours without smoking a cigarette, or drinking coffee, and you said, “That’s impossible,” that would mean that you’re addicted to nicotine or caffeine. Similarly, if you can’t go for twenty-four hours without saying unkind words about or to others, then you’ve lost control over your tongue.”

We have a tongue issue because we have a heart issue. Every person’s heart is faced with a serious issue called "sin." It isn’t until our hearts are changed that our words change. God is the only one who can change our heart and fix the sin issue.

Romans 3 reminds us that all of humanity has a sin issue that needs to be fixed: “We have already made the charge the Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one’” (verses 9-10, NIV).

No one is righteous . . . not even one. Regarding sin in the world, Reinhold Niebuhr said something profound: “Most of the evil in this world does not come from evil people. It comes from people who consider themselves good.” We are all sinners; no one is good.

A British newspaper editor once asked G. K. Chesterton, “What’s wrong with the world?” Without missing a beat, Chesterton replied simply, “I am.” He realized that sin is devastating to the individual and humanity. How devastating?

Charles Finney was right when he said: “Sin is the most expensive thing in the universe. . . . If it is forgiven sin, it cost God His only Son. . . . If it is unforgiven sin, it costs the sinner his soul and an eternity in hell.”

Right after Paul reminds us that we are all under sin—and that no one is excluded from this pronouncement—he uncovers a huge revelation. He shows us where sin shows up consistently. You have to pay attention to see it. Remember Paul has just said in verse 10 that “there is none righteous, no not one.”

Now he says in verses 11-15:

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. “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood.” (NIV)

The apostle Paul lists five different parts of the body that are the most common vehicles of sin: throats, tongues, lips, mouths, and feet. Ready for this? Four of the five body parts relate to the tongue.

Wow! That small member of our body is the biggest dispenser of our sinful nature. Our mouths can destroy lives. Adolf Hitler’s manifesto was Mein Kampf. Someone once calculated that for every word in the book, Hitler killed 320 lives. They calculated that 60 million people died in World War II, and the book has 187,000 words in it. His words killed millions of people.

Whatever is in your heart will find its way to your tongue. That’s why we need God in our hearts and sin out of our heart. A. W. Tozer said it like this: “What’s closest to your heart is what you talk about and if God is close to your heart, you’ll talk about Him.”

We need God in our hearts today.

Day 119

Today’s Reading: Romans 2

Haddon Robinson tells the story of a lumber business settlement in the West, during the American frontier days. As the town grew, the citizens wanted a church, so they built a building and called a minister.

One afternoon the preacher spotted some of his parishioners dragging logs that had floated down the river from another village onto the bank. The owner’s stamp was marked on the end of each log. To his shock and dismay, the minister saw his members sawing off the ends where the owner’s stamps appeared.

The following Sunday he preached on the commandment “Thou shall not steal.” At the close of the service, people lined up and offered enthusiastic congratulations. “Wonderful message, Pastor.” “Mighty fine preaching.” “Keep up the good work.” It wasn’t the response he expected, so the following Sunday, he preached on the same commandment, but gave it a different ending. “Thou shall not steal. Thou shall also not cut off the end of thy neighbor’s logs.” When he got through, the congregation ran him out of town. While the church shouted, "Amen!" to “thou shalt not steal,” they gave the pastor a one-way ticket when the “thou” became “you.”

Romans 2 is about to get close to the heart of us all. Like that Old West pastor, the apostle Paul is about to address us cutting off the end of the logs with the owner’s stamps on them:

You have no excuse, everyone of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things. But do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment on those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? (Romans 2:1-4)

Later on, Paul says: “You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that one shall not steal, do you steal? You who say that one should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery?” (Romans 2:21-22).

The apostle Paul is challenging us to be careful about condemning others for what we do ourselves. It's exactly what the congregation did that ran their pastor out of town. They cheered about not stealing but were doing it themselves. They loved the sermon on others not stealing but not the one on their theft.

It’s like the saying I heard recently, “We are very good lawyers for our own mistakes and very good judges for the mistakes of others.”

Paul’s challenge is for us to look no further than our lives. The church in Rome sees the sin issue as what others do but not what they do. Paul has to get them—and us—to practice some self-introspection.

When you speak as Paul did, people will cry out, “You’re judging me!” Always remember that correction is called judgment by those who don’t want to change their behavior. When someone says, “You are judging me,” they are using a smokescreen to avoid change.

Challenging people’s immoral lifestyle is not popular today. Rick Warren diagnoses why it’s a problem in our country. Consider these profound words: “Our culture has accepted two huge lies: The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.”

Verse four is what blows me away in Romans 2. Paul essentially says, “What’s incredible about God is that you will see His goodness on your life while you are living a duality of life, and yet God is still there.” Paul is saying that we must not misinterpret the goodness of God as the approval of God on our actions. God’s goodness is to get us to turn from our wicked ways to Him.

The verse in the Contemporary English Version reads: “You surely don’t think much of God’s wonderful goodness or of his patience and willingness to put up with you. Don’t you know that the reason God is good to you is because he wants you to turn to him?”

As someone once said, “Truth is like surgery. It hurts, but it cures. Lies are like painkillers. They give instant relief but have side effects for a long time.” Not only does our society need an injection of truth, but you and I need it too. We need it to start with you and me.

Day 118

Today’s Reading: Romans 1

"What about the people in other countries who have never heard the gospel? Will they go to hell?” This was a question one of our worship band members asked me. I was finishing up a late meeting at the church, and he was finishing practice. We met each other in the lobby when he dropped that question. More specifically, he said, “We preach the gospel here, but what about for all of the other countries around the world? How will they know what we know?”

Today’s reading in Romans 1 is how I began to address this young man’s legit and important question.

I wish I were a universalist and an annihilationist, but I can’t be, based on what the Bible teaches. A universalist says everyone goes to heaven no matter how they interpret God, so all of humanity will be in heaven. An annihilationist says there is only heaven and no hell, so those who are evil simply cease to exist. It removes the final judgment. I wish I were both, so responding to such a complex question would be easy. However, the Bible provides an answer. We'll start in the book of Romans.

Romans is what I use to explain the difference between a local church band member, a tribesman in the remote part of the Amazon or a nomad in the Sahara who has never heard the Good News. The full answer is in two Bible verses: one about God, one about humanity.

Let’s start with the verse on humanity: “That which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:19-20). Paul says God has two witnesses on the planet: one is internal and the other is external. Both creation and consciousness speak about God—we see this very clearly in this Romans passage. It is the evidence of God “without” and “within.” In other words, what's outside of us and what's inside of us.

German philosopher Emmanuel Kant spoke about believing in God because of two realities that converted him—“the starry heavens above and the moral law of God within.”

A story about Sir Isaac Newton and his atheist friend serves as a wonderful example of the evidence "without." Newton’s friend did not believe in God but preferred to take the position that the universe "just happened." One day Newton showed him a model of the solar system. The sun, the planets, and the moons were all in place. The sizes of the spheres were in proportion, and the planets and the satellites revolved around the sun at their relative speeds. The friend admired the model saying, “It’s intriguing. Who made it?”

“Nobody,” said Newton. “It just happened.”

Newton was stating that to have a design of the universe, there needs to be a designer of the universe. A big bang didn’t do it, but a big God did.

The “within” argument is the moral law. The distinguishing between right and wrong is innate within humanity. This premise was the entirety of C. S. Lewis’s conversion and his must-read book, Mere Christianity.

What is not clear is how much information a person gets from within and from without? Even with only these two witnesses, however, I do know that it is enough by which to be judged and not have any excuses.

For all of us in the West, I believe we will be judged more severely than the person in an Indian remote village because we have had the gospel made clear to us almost our entire lives.

Now let's look at the verse about God: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25, AMP).

This verse is so powerful. Abraham said this about God. God will do what is right with what He has given humanity to believe.

From consciousness and creation will people in other countries know Jesus was God in the flesh, came from a virgin, died for the sins of humanity on the cross, rose from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of God the Father? That I don’t know. It doesn’t seem so. What I do know is that whatever they get will be enough for them to be judged and they will be without excuse.