It's not exactly early this morning. But it is rainy. It's just a generally lazy Saturday morning. No one else is up yet. I actually brought my laptop upstairs so I could sit in bed and do NIPTO. Lazy? No. Comfortable and warm? Yes.
Romans 4:18-25
18Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
The situation looked hopeless. But he believed and was hopeful and God fulfilled his promise to Abraham. He became the father of many nations. It's crazy. But wait, it gets crazier.
19Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah's womb was also dead.
Okay. I talked about this a little in my last NIPTO post. But seriously. He was 100 and she was 90. RIDICULOUS. But he was still gungho about it and didn't lose faith.
20Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.
He was basically like "You know what you're doing God. I believe that you can do what you promised." In fact, he was strengthened in his faith. And he gave glory to God. Just thinking about it, he seems like a strange dude. I mean, he kind of lived in the middle of nowhere. He was old. He praised God even when things seemed hopeless. I think the neighbor kids probably though of him as "Crazy Old Abe" or something like that. =P
I think that in America today, we've lost this kind of faith though. He had no idea how God was going to do what he said, but he still believed it was going to happen. America is such an instant gratification country. You're hungry, you get food. You're bored, you see a movie. You want music, you get it on iTunes. We get frustrated with waiting for anything. We want what we want and we want it now. Abraham had to wait. I need to learn how to wait. God has plans for all of us. A lot of the time, we have no idea how they're going to turn out. But God has his plan and we need to trust him and go along with it. Not just play along, GO along.
22This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness." 23The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, 24but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
Because he believed, it was credited to him as righteousness. Credit. Something we're all too familiar with in America. Credit cards... loans... debt... Writing that out makes me think of Jesus Paid it All... the bridge goes like this: "O Praise the one who paid my debt and raised this life up from the dead"
He paid our debt that we got because we have credit from God. HAH. I slay myself. But seriously: We have credit from God too. We can be righteous. Upright. Holy. When we believe in God... when we believe that Jesus came to earth as a man and was killed by men, was buried for three days, and rose again, then we will have faith that is credited as righteousness. Not sure if that all flows together. I think it does, but I could be wrong. :)
25He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.
He was delivered. To death. Our sins. Our justification.
He died. For us. He didn't do diddily squat to deserve death. It was all us. He took the world's sin on his own shoulders. He died for us and by our hands. But then.... he was raised to LIFE for our justification.
I think that's all for today.
I think I'm going driving now.
WOOOOOO.
Peace out homie G's
(I don't know where that came from)
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