Road down Romans: A journey through Grace, Law and Faith

  Our Relationship with Sin Read: Romans 7 Our Relationship with the Law: Verse 1-12 Have you ever had something in your life that you felt slowed you down. Stopped you from reaching a healthy relationship with God. Maybe, it was a relationship with your partner or a friend. Maybe it was a repetitive sin or an idol in your life you need rid of. In these first 12 verses we can clearly see Paul discussing our relationship with God’s law. He illustrates this by comparing our relationship with the law to a marriage in verse 3 and 4. That if a woman marries a man but the man dies, she won’t commit adultery because she is no long bound to that man. But like the woman was bound to the man we are bound to the law. However, through Christ’s death and resurrection we are no longer bound to the law but alive in Christ. This doesn’t mean that the law is bad, but it is powerless to save us, it is through Christ alone that saves us. That’s what a lot of Jews back then were getting wron...

  Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ Read:     Romans 6 Imagine a man who has been in prison for many years. One day he wakes up to find that his cell is wide open. He’s completely free to leave, but instead of walking out, he chooses to stay inside. Why? He’s become so used to life in prison he doesn’t know what freedom looks like anymore. Why do think he stayed? What would you do in that situation? You are probably thinking you would walk out and enjoy freedom. But this mirrors the message Paul gives us in Romans 6 as we are prisoners or slaves to our sin. However, we can be free from our sin when we put our trust in Jesus. Paul starts by asking the question in verse 1 “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not!” Some people may say they are a Christian, but they don’t live like one. Maybe that’s you, maybe there’s a sin that you want to hold onto. You may lack the spiritual discipline to get rid of it. Jesus says in Matthew 6v24 “No one can s...

The Hope in our Faith Read: Romans 5 In the last blog we saw Paul talking about Abraham about how God turned his life around with one promise. Sometimes life can be turned around for the better, other times life can be turned on its head for the worse. When I reached high school I had a hard time, didn’t have any Christian friends in my year (that I knew of at the time) so I tried my best to fit in. In doing so, I lost touch with my relationship with God. The boys I then became friends with weren’t good and I found myself getting bullied worse and worse. From what just started off as just normal banter grew to a really hard point in my life to the point, I realised I needed help. My mental health was at an all-time low to the point I didn’t think anyone around me cared about me. My self-esteem was low, I was anxious, over thinking what people thought of me. But I decided to seek help, and a verse kept appearing and that Psalm 56v3&4 and it says “When I am afraid, I will trust...

  Promises Through Faith Read: Genesis 17v15-21 (For Context) Romans 4 You know that everyone gets news that they never expected. I remember when I was 8 years old getting the news I would have a little brother. It was definitely the best news I have ever gotten that I will never forget. I remember it like it was yesterday sitting in the back seat of the car beside my older brother outside the doctors and mum turning around to give us the unexpected news. We both thought we were just going out for ice cream. Other people will receive good news like I did, and sometimes other people will get really sad news, like they found out a loved on passed away, you or someone you know has a terrible illness, or your parents are getting divorced. Whatever it is good or bad one thing Paul talks about in this passage is to have faith. We see from the last blog in Romans chapter 3 that faith is essential for our salvation. But its important to have faith when life takes an unexpected turn...

  We are all Sinners Read: Psalm 14 Romans 3 One thing people struggle with the most is admitting their faults. Like when they have done something wrong or that they struggle with something. Maybe it’s because your friends or family think so highly of you, you don’t want to let them down. You can see that a lot with parents, we all knew that one person who has parents who think they are an angel but when they are away from their parents, they are anything but an angel. In this chapter Paul gives us a hard reality check. No matter how good our friends and family think we are we are all sinners.     Why do we sin? A lot of the time its because of pride. We think that we can go our own way and look elsewhere for joy and happiness other than God. We see this play out in Psalm 14, where David talks about the sins of his people and how they have forgotten God, even convincing themselves that there is no God. (v1) Just like in the last blog about people living to their ...

Living out God’s Standard   Read:  Romans 2 Last blog we looked at the importance of God’s word and how when we neglect it, we can go down a path where we live by our own standards, and we slip away from God’s standards. However, our standard is subjective, everyone has a different standard to live their life. So, what is okay to you may not be okay to others. We see the Romans in these verses trying to justify their sins by comparing to others. But we see in the first 5 versus the Romans are judging others, but Paul is reminding them to look at themselves. Paul is calling them out for their hypocrisy and not living by their own standards that they have set. We see this in verse 3 to 5 and verse 21 and 22. But when we look at our own lives we can fall so easily in this mindset of judging others. That’s why gossiping is dangerous when we talk about others baggage but don’t look at our own lives. It’s important that we focus on our own walk and aim to live by God’s standards a...

  Importance of God’s Word Read:              Romans 1              Psalm 1 Have you ever had a hot take? Which is an opinion you have that goes against what the majority of people believe. Especially something that you’re really passionate about. I love having a hot take because I love seeing the disgust and the disagreement on peoples face when I tell them that ice cream is overrated, or Liverpool FC is not a good football team. But people can get very passionate about their hot takes and will defend it even when they are outnumbered by everyone else with that opinion. That’s the sort of bravery and shameless delight Paul has for the gospel in verse 16. “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.” Paul is following the line of thinking in Psalm 1 when it says in verse 2 saying “But his delight is in the law of the Lord.”  2 Timothy 3:16&17 says, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable fo...

          Introduction Welcome to my blog! Here I will be posting blogs about each chapter in the book of Romans, written by the apostle Paul, in 57AD. He wrote it to Christians in Rome to strengthen them in their faith and warn them of false teachings. The main focus of this book is that we should live for Jesus and how your faith affects your everyday lives.   Here is the layout of each bog: Read:   The passages to read before the main body of the blog Main body of the blog that will go through the reading above. This is taking a deep dive into Paul’s letter to the Romans and through the themes of grace, law and faith. This will hopefully help highlight where our source of faith comes from, the love and grace God shows us and helps us avoid any false teaching as Paul highlights. Going Deeper Questions These questions allow you to go deeper to what Paul and other authors are talking about in these chapters. You can go through these quest...