Righteousness is not a Behavior it is a Belief!

Good morning to all on this Sunday morning and Waine and I were praising God for this beautiful day in Hawkinsville, GA. Waine is off playing golf and I am having my devotion. Thank you for your prayers for ET and his family. His CT scan showed no progression of his disease and he is in the next phase of his treatment with radiation and chemotherapy for 5 weeks. Continue to pray that God will use ET and this journey to spread the Good News that Jesus the Christ is able to heal which is the message that his physicians are getting. Also, another friend of ours had a large colon poly removed and is doing fine. Waine's Mom, Violet, who is 87 is in failing health. Please pray for her healing and her quality of life. She knows Jesus so her future is secure so we are praising God for her life. Prayer changes things; prayer can change the course of time so that the outcome that everyone think would happen doesn't. Prayer engages our faith and then we are all in the miracle zone. Thank you for your prayers!

I am continuing my journey in Romans 3, verses 1-20, "What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very Words of God. What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Not at all!   As it is written: "So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge." But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing His wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue, "If my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases His glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?" Why not say—as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say—"Let us do evil that good may result"? Their condemnation is deserved. What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, 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; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin." Amen and amen! May God add a blessing to the reading of His Holy Word.

Paul had a very difficult job--he had to convince the Jewish Christians to let go of just "trying to live" under the law and instead embracing the law to learn about faith and their obligation to use faith through Christ to defeat sin. If you think about it, this was a radical concept for Jews who had been taught for millenia that if they kept the Mosaic law their future would be secured through eternity. Jews had to embrace the fact that Christ ushered in a new disspenation that required everyone to accept His diety and then accept the gift of eternal life through Christ. No one, Jew or gentile, were going to be able to "work" their way or "behave" their way into eternal life. Likewise, for those who did not want to live by faith, there was no safety in the not living a rigtheous life  as an excuse to exhort others to embrace a life of faith. Both the Jew and the Gentile were being urged to embrace the principles that Christ lived and died for. As Christians who have only lived under the New Testament, these struggles that the Roman Christians were facing seem very odd to me however I am sure they were very confusing for those new Christians. The botton line for Christians then and now is that lving a life through faith is the Righteous Life we have been exhorted to live. Living by faith also means that we live a life with out doubt and fear. Practically speaking, each hour of each day, fear and doubt, are always present to interrupt our faith walk which will hinder our ability to manifest the fruits of the Spirit. When fear and doubt affect you today, defaet the Devil through God's promises for our abundance.

Please blessed today through God's Word.

Stephanie