Hey All

Jon, Jake, Patrick, Matt, Seamas, David ... and me;

I'm glad to be doing this together. Definately try to get on board with this ... it'll be good to review and pray over in 7 years.

SONG
So, I decided to write 16 songs, one for every chapter of romans that I was reading for the last 16 days. Don't be fooled, the songs were quite bad. A couple were rap, you would appreciate that, Jake. And they were only lyrics, no actual music yet, except what was in my head. And I got up to chapter 6; and then it so happened that i lost my journal; yeah, major bummer. And so, I didn't write the rest of the songs; could have been a good thing. But, I thought you might appreciate that story.

ROMANS
General thoughts:
There is so much that I could write, people have written millions of books and sermons on these words. And here we are trying to tackle it; good stuff. yes, we will definatley have to come back to it, that is why I thought it would be a good book. Every overall review period, we come back here, and many other scriptures will lead us back here too.

Rom 8:11:
"And if the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you." David, was it you talking about being raised again in the flesh? I think that this is such an important topic. Earlier, Paul talks about the hope we have in christ; we hope in heaven, that is true, but what is our depiction of heaven. What image does our mind conjure when we think on eternity? This has become more and more real to me, I think that many christians (and most people who profess the religion) will claim to believe in heaven. Even some would believe in heaven much more than hell. But what is the description; I do not think that it is so ethereal as I use to believe it was. I think that it is real, tangible, bodily ... being raised in the flesh. Just as Christ was raised, so will we be raised. Just as adam was before sin, is how we will be; in a glorified bodied living as eternal beings without the pervision called sin which leads to death. The implications of the so often used verse, "the wages of sin are death" are so much greater than we know. That verse is so often used at surface level. I think Paul is saying, "the reason we die is sin. Death is a direct fruit, a direct product of sin. No sin, no death. We do not know a world without death, and so it is easy to blame death on other logical things, because death is inevitable. But the spiritual poison causing death is sin, and we also do not know a world without sin. The corpse, the funeral, the black plague, the murders ... with the cancer patients , the starving, the war casualties, the aborted babies along with the elders and grand parents all perish because of the same root: sin. Living proof of the undeniable connection between the spiritual world and the physical world that we see. The life we will live after being raised in glorified bodies will too depict a physical life submissive to the authority of the spiritual; only now we are submissive completely and wholey to a life of eternal obedience apart from sin. I think these thoughts run deeper than what I know. I get my boxers in a bind trying to think about them.

Rom 7:21
"So I discover this principle: when I want to do good, evil is with me". I can't rephrase this in any way other than how paul says it here. It is so true, and it rings in accord with so much of how I feel. I desire obedience, yet I daily disobey. It is the romans 7 syndrome. why do I do, what I do not want to do and so persist in doing so. Pardon my emotion words here, but my general reaction to this is as follows: [I desire obedience, I struggle, and I disobey ... on thinking back of the sinful actions/thoughts and feel the emotions of helplessness and relentless rejection to God's spirit who actually lives in me, I can't help but look down and shake my head with deep breaths and muffled grunts as a whispery "damit Gus" crosses my breath. "when ... when, when will I stop this and turn towards obedience?" And then I pick my self back up and press on towards the next battle that will soon take place.] This reoccuring situation proves to me the reality of Rom 7:21

Rom 6:13
"And do not offer any parts of [your mortal body] to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness"
I want to mediatate here on the use of the word weapon. Paul says that we can use the parts of our mortal bodies as weapons either for righteousness or unrighteousness. What exactly does he mean? Hmm? {thinking} ... ... ... well, if there truly is a battle taking place all around us that we do not see, because it deals with that which is spiritual and only manifests itself in physical form as for instance, evil (greed envy and so on) or good (true forgiveness patience and so on) then we can discipline our bodies to be servants for the Lord as a weapon for righteousness. I'm sure there could be quite a lot of examples here; train your fleet to run from images and places or unrighteousness; discipline your eyes to see people the way God intended them to see as opposed to the way we see them with our preconceived prejudices. Teach your arms and hands to do the Lords work: hugging those who are unloved, rebuilding that which is destroyed, and protecting those who need help. Teach your mouth and volcals to speak truthfully yet with kindess and to stay away from gossip. Good words on gossip, pat. Gossip is truly a swarm of locusts to the farmers' fields. And if your crop is eaten by the enemies locusts, train your body to keep from setting locusts upon their crop. And so on with all of the following ramifications of using our bodies as weapons of righteousness or unrighteousness, respectively.

Rom 11:25
So that you will not be conceited, brothers, I do not want to be unaware of this myster: a partial hardening has come to Israel until the full number of Gentiles has come in. 26 And in this way, Israel will be saved
My impression of this verse, is, Paul is speaking of even today. He is speaking of the time of the end times, which has extended since Christ has returned. Maybe? He is talking about the time before Christ returned; right now, Jews are in opposition to that which we know is true, and they deny the signs and prophecies with fervor. Is this verse the prophecy of the current jewish response to the gospel?

CONCLUSION
I suppose that is it for tonight. I look forward to reading more posts. Pat, let us know what to study next month starting on the 13th. We will rotate through the seven of us on the site choosing which book to study; at least, that is how I figured we could do it.

Be encouraged.
-Gus