Hold on to your hats boys and girls, we are in Romans! This is the Apostle Paul’s great theological discourse, and this baby covers so much ground that it is like drinking from a fire hose. Justification through faith, righteousness, peace, freedom from sin, freedom from condemnation, living according to the Spirit, looking ahead to our future glory, knowing the immensity of God’s love. Paul addresses this and even more in the span of four chapters. The best part is that all of these things are not only possible, but they are the reality for those of us who trust in Jesus!
Praise to our Lord who transforms the spiritually dead into the spiritually alive, who turns the slave to sin whose end was surely destruction into the slave to God whose end is now holiness and eternal life! Praise to Him who gives us the strength and power to overcome and defeat all things that come against His glory. Hard times, hunger, homelessness, violence, even bullying... none of those things can defeat us or break us when we hold on to the promises we have in Christ Jesus. In any situation we find ourselves in we are able to glorify Him, because NOTHING can separate us from His love!
This is the God who not only knows how many people are in the tribes of Israel, but also knows their names and has specific tasks for them to do. It is crazy to me as I read Numbers that God asks Moses to do a census even though He knows full well how many hairs are on each head of every man, woman, and child on the planet. It is not for God’s benefit, it is for Moses and the people’s benefit that they do the census. The message is clear: God cares about the nation of Israel as a whole and also cares about each of them as individuals. Not only that, God also cares about what these people do with their lives. He has plans and a purpose for them to carry out, and the consequences for failing to do so are great.
So as we go about living our lives maybe we should consider that, like the people of Israel, God is aware of us as individuals and has plans and a purpose for us. Maybe, just maybe, there are great consequences if we disregard God’s desires for our lives, and we should do all we can to listen to His instructions for living and obey them.
-Darren Bute
(Youth Pastor)