{"id":22824,"date":"2022-08-22T22:00:23","date_gmt":"2022-08-23T05:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/romans-1_1-7-copy\/"},"modified":"2022-08-02T13:20:26","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T20:20:26","slug":"romans-1_8-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/romans-1_8-17\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of God for All of Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Romans 1:8-17\u00a0 \u00a0Click here for Bible Verses<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Today\u2019s passage is Romans 1:8-17.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!<\/p>\n

Romans 1:8 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n8\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 8:\u00a0 I love how Paul always begins his letters with thanks.\u00a0 That\u2019s such a great to live life and to do relationships.\u00a0\u00a0Always begin with an attitude of gratitude.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Romans 1:9-10 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n9\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you
\n10\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 9-10:\u00a0 Paul had never met the Christians in Rome before, but his heart went out to them and he would pray for them often.\u00a0\u00a0A great way to love people when you can\u2019t be with them is to pray for them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Romans 1:11-12 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n11\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong–
\n12\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verses 11-12:\u00a0 There is a strength and mutual encouragement that comes from being together with other believers.\u00a0 Paul comes across in his letter not as one who just wants to take from the Christians in Rome, but as one who wants to give to them and to bless them.\u00a0 Likewise,\u00a0may you value and prioritize being together with your brothers and sisters in Christ, knowing that the give and take exchange that happens can benefit everyone involved<\/strong>.\u00a0 In your church don\u2019t just be a consumer who takes, but be a contributor who gives, a family member who happily gives and receives.<\/p>\n

Romans 1:13-15 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n13\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.
\n14\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish.
\n15\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 13-15:\u00a0 The church is Rome was most likely made up of mostly Greek Gentiles with a minority of Greek Jews and maybe some Jews from Jerusalem.\u00a0 Paul, a Jew by background, clarifies that he is here to serve both \u201cGreeks and non-Greeks\u201d, regardless of their intellectual sophistication (\u201cboth to the wise and the foolish\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0For the gospel is for people of all backgrounds, ethnicities, languages and cultures.\u00a0 God\u2019s kingdom is the most multi-ethnic, multi-coloured, diverse family that has ever existed or will exist.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Romans 1:16 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n16\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 16:\u00a0\u00a0The gospel is not a human-powered thing, but a God-powered thing.<\/strong>\u00a0 Thus it is \u201cthe power\u00a0of God<\/em>\u00a0for the salvation of everyone who believes\u201d.\u00a0 When we believe the gospel \u2013 this good news that Jesus died for our sins and rose again \u2013 we are then saved by the power of God.\u00a0 Our faith in Jesus activates God\u2019s power to save us.\u00a0 Like Paul, may we not be ashamed of the gospel (v16).<\/p>\n

Also, what does \u201cfirst for the Jew, then for the Gentile\u201d mean?\u00a0 It means that the gospel first came to the Jews before being spread to the Gentiles.\u00a0 As Jesus says in John 4:22: \u201csalvation is from the Jews\u201d.\u00a0 In other words, the gospel is like something contagious spreading where the Jews were the first ones to catch it and then spread it to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

Romans 1:17 (NIV)<\/strong>
\n17\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”<\/em><\/p>\n

On verse 17:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cRighteousness\u201d is the state of being completely pure, holy and without sin.<\/strong>\u00a0 Because God is righteous, anything less than 100% pure and holy, anything with sin, cannot stand in God\u2019s presence.\u00a0\u00a0As hard as we might try, we can never be righteous on our own.\u00a0 But the good news \u2013 the gospel \u2013 is that \u201ca righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith\u201d.\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0In other words, knowing that we could not attain righteousness on our own merit or strength, God made available to us a righteousness that you access by faith, by believing in Jesus and what He did for us.\u00a0 Paul quotes the prophet Habakkuk\u2019s \u201cthe righteous will live by faith\u201d (Habakkuk 2:4) to show that this idea of righteousness by faith is not some brand new concept but was something God promised beforehand through his prophets in Scripture (see Romans 1:2).<\/p>\n

Father God, thank You that I can place my hope in You.\u00a0 Thank You that through Jesus You have revealed a righteousness that I could never earn by my own good works, but that I can receive by faith in who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for me.\u00a0\u00a0 Thank You that through Jesus Christ I get to be part of the largest and most diverse family that has ever existed.\u00a0 May I not just be a consumer in this family but a contributor too.\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 name, AMEN!<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div><\/section><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi GAMErs!<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s passage is Romans 1:8-17.\u00a0 Let\u2019s go!
\n\u00a0
\nRomans 1:8 (NIV)
\n8\u00a0\u00a0First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.
\n\u00a0
\nOn verse 8:\u00a0 I love how Paul always begins his letters with thanks.\u00a0 That\u2019s such a great to live life and to do relationships.\u00a0\u00a0Always begin with an attitude of gratitude.
\n\u00a0
\nRomans 1:9-10 (NIV)
\n9\u00a0\u00a0God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you
\n10\u00a0\u00a0in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you.
\n\u00a0
\nOn verses 9-10:\u00a0 Paul had never met the Christians in Rome before, but his heart went out to them and he would pray for them often.\u00a0\u00a0A great way to love people when you can\u2019t be with them is to pray for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gametime-sharing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22827,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22824\/revisions\/22827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ocbf.ca\/2019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}