Romans 2:4 Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"
KJV ", not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?"
Romans 3:20 "For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law come knowledge of sin."
Will be justified: to show to be righteous, declare righteous, I make righteous, defend the cause of, justify (this is probably from Bible Hub)
The law will continually show you have you fall short. Therefore, you will never be shown to be righteous under a law that you cannot fully obey. So....
We are, "justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." vs. 24
"It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." vs. 26
[God The Justifier]
Hallelujah!!
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Words of Satan in red and Jesus's response is in black. This is from Jesus being tempted after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights.
If you are the son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread
It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God
If you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written; He will command his angels concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone.
Again it is written, 'you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'
All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me
Be gone, Satan! For it is written, 'you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.'
There was the temptation for Jesus to receive a false exhalation; to take glory away from God and place it on himself. Jesus always brought it back to his father. The exhalation he would have received would be less than what he would have received after the work of the cross. This exhalation would also take less time, less pain, less closeness to the "least of these."
Take away: Glory belongs to the father. Do not settle for a lesser version of what God promised you.
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Love yourself if you care about justice
- Advocate for myself that I might advocate for my neighbor
- Trust myself that I may trust my neighbor
- Take care of myself that I may take care of my neighbor
-Stand up for myself that I may stand up for my neighbor
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Below is a text I sent to my cousin.
"And you know... in our attempt to not abuse grace we find ourselves back in the place of understanding why its there and necessary."
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All my life I've been pretty hard on myself. This journey of learning to speak up and living without fear has reminded me of that truth. I've been frustrated with my failures of not speaking up at certain times and just overall tired with having so many opportunities to speak up. But my frustrations have lead me to a better understanding of the meaning of grace and understanding what it means to live for God. This understanding of course can be applied to other areas of my life. Being hard on myself constantly shows me that I think my good deeds or doing a good job is doing God a favor or making him look good. Yeeaaahhhh right.
I want to do a good job in life period. I want to please God. And if I don't do well I'm hard on myself. Some days I fail at this speaking up thing and lies have crept into my mind. "You ain't ever gonna get this right. How can God use you? You need to do better." So this is where grace comes in. First off, I'm only "good" because of the one who makes me good. No matter how well I think I may be doing in life I will still be in need of grace. I'm still in need of God. I still need to rely on the Holy Spirit. Becoming more mature in Christ is not working yourself to a place of being independent of Him but realizing the magnitude of grace in comparison to your high amount of "cain't get right." That's comforting.
Therefore, in living for God, I'm realizing it's more about direction than perfection. I try to work my way to perfection but then get discouraged in wrong doing or when I fall short. But living for God is more about keeping your gaze on Him and constantly chasing after Him. In that chase you will fall, you will mess up, you will cry, you will want to give up. But your direction must remain on "The Author and FINISHER of our faith." I believe that's why we read scriptures like, "SEEK first the Kingdom", "run with endurance the race set before us, LOOKING to Jesus", "Before him there was no king like him, who TURNED to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might." With God as your direction, end goal, helper in the race... I can breathe a bit easier.
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