Living Epistles

I just understood something so beautiful, I want to make a post about it so that I never forget.

A few years ago I wanted to understand the Book of Romans…  I knew there was a bunch of truth packed in there and I wanted to know about all of it. 

I read it over and over again. I bought a study guide with a commentary and met with a friend once a week and we would read thru it and talk about it together. It’s like all I wanted was to understand Romans… well I never did.

I got nothing out of it.

I was so frustrated. No understanding, no revelation, literally nothing. They were just words on a page with no life. I would get really frustrated because I had a friend that told me understanding the book of Romans changed her whole walk with God… it didnt do anything like that for me.

Ive been wondering recently when is Jesus going to take me thru the Book of Romans? Seems like a pretty important book to understand doctrine… I mean, that’s what I’ve heard. 

Jesus has taken me thru only two complete books of the bible. Revelation and Song of Solomon. Sure, I’ve read more than those two complete books, I used to be quite the bible thumper and have read most of the OT and the NT multiple times. I still read the bible… I mean that Jesus Himself has only taken me thru two complete books… which is a different kind of thing. Romans wasn’t one of them…

I turned on my audio bible app today to Romans… in listening to it, I just realized that the reason Jesus never took me thru Romans is because He’s been teaching me the same truths over the last year and half in real life… 

Teaching me about the wrath of God being poured out against all ungodliness on the cross… understanding that I am justified by faith (Christ in me is faith… His faith and not my own), that nothing in my flesh can please God, my struggles with legalism, and finally getting revelation that there is no condemnation in Christ. The righteousness of the law fufilled in us (Christ in you fufills all things). Reckoning myself dead to sin and alive to Christ and in Christ… being transformed by the renewing of my mind… etc.

And Grace. I’ve been learning a lot about Gods Grace lately. What it is and what is isn’t.

I remembered asking Jesus repeatedly to “teach me what You taught Paul”… that is something I pray very othen.

The truth contained in scripture is lived out in our very lives in Christ. We walk these truths out in Him and He in us. We are living epistles.

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