Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Romans 1:17

This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight.  And now we see, it begins and ends in faith.  As the Scripture declares, “The righteous will live by faith.”


So, the person in right-standing before God by trusting Him really lives.  To live by faith means to be guided by things unseen and not yet.  It means trusting God’s way instead of making our own way.

I need to reflect on my “assignment” as Paul did so as to live by faith.  I know I am called by God into a life with Christ.  I am sometimes unfocused by its broadness and context because it does mean my whole life.  Yet, I need to find ways to apply it specifically.  This includes my call to godly motherhood, which gets diffused by parenting adult children.  I am called to be a godly wife to a husband who is balanced and wonderful.  I sometimes don’t know how to offer myself to a person who is completed and stable.  For both these roles, I just want to be my best self in Christ so I can be a blessing.

Then there is that call into the world, which can become more problematic for me.  I feel like I hold answers and then I feel like I have nothing.  What is the urgent task of apostleship that Paul feels?  I used to think that it was calling others to the obedience that comes by faith.  I doubt as much as I desire to fulfill my own tasks. What do these moments mean?

Then I remember:  “Wait upon the Lord.  Be strong and of good courage.  Wait upon the Lord.”

How profound! The answer cannot be found in me.  The answer is in the Lord/on the Lord/The Lord.  The Lord of the universe has an (the) answer for me and cares about me enough to give it.  Am I willing/patient/ready enough to hear it?  That’s why we are instructed to wait, so as to develop readiness for the answer.  “Take heart,” the King James says rightly – ready the will to hear the answer.  Then Paul gives more direction in Philippians, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire to obey him and the power to do as he please.”  I will let God do His work!

Amen – Make it so!


If we are to be spiritually formed
in a way that leads us to God,
we want to finally and thoroughly keep God at the center. 

What does God reveal about himself in this passage?

What does God most want for us?