Reflections in Romans

From the introduction in the epistle to the Romans:

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God- the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

Paul is a servant of Christ-called by Him and set apart to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. This gospel was a mystery and yet not a mystery. God gave foreknowledge through the prophets over the millennia.And God declared that Jesus was the Christ through his resurrection from the dead. God put his stamp on it. It was the icing on the cake after all the miracles performed over the three year period of his ministry.  Jesus not only raised Jairus' daughter, the widow's son and Lazarus. He conquered death himself, paying the price for our sins. Paul will lay it out in this letter to the Romans.

I have been listening to the new testament in my car for the last couple of months. I have a long commute to work and spend the morning commute listening to the Word or reflecting while I play spiritual songs in the background. Something really stuck out for me this time and I am trying to recapture that. I wasn't able to write it down as I was driving and the memory is being elusive. Most likely so that I will actively pursue it. So here I sit. I am listening to Romans again and will be reading it and reflecting. I type faster than I write so I shall journal here on my blog.

This is a public blog, unread, but public none the less and so I will struggle to be open and honest here.

There is verse in the second chapter that reads as follows:

This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

This is the concluding line in a section that starts in this way:

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.

This really struck me. Most of my sin is inside of me. My thoughts, my personal reading habits, my angst, my intentions. None can see this and no one is aware of it. God knows. He has a front row seat through the indwelling Holy Spirit who is wounded on a daily basis by the ugliness of my sin. Yowza! The things we take for granted that are known to the lover of our souls.....

God desires our faith, our trust and our obedience to his Word. It should be easy, but there is a constant tension between what we ought to do and what we desire to do in our own sinful nature. We tend to fall short of the glory of God on a daily basis. What do we do about this? What can we do? Can we do anything?