Every Day Devotion

Romans 4:14 [14] For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. (ESV) Imagine if you will the story of two sons. Both are potential heirs to their father's fortune. The father has decided to give all of his fortune to only one of the sons. He will make his decision by evaluating the behavior of both. In the course of life one son did his best to do all the things that the father demanded, but never showed love to his father. The other loved his father, but was not a good rule keeper. At the end of his life the father calls his sons into his bedroom. He has made his decision. While the first son is confident that his father will recognize his lifetime of rigid obedience as being the requirement to receiving the inheritance, the other son bursts into the room and hugs his father's neck. He tells him that no matter what happens he just wants his father to know how much he loves him. The father chooses the second son....

Romans 4:13 [13] For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. (ESV) God made a promise to Abraham. He told him that he would be the father of many nations. When Abraham's wife was told that she would be the mother of a child she laughed out loud. She was an old woman! God's promise came true and Abraham became the father of the Jewish nation and as Paul describes him is that he would be the heir of the world. Impressive. Let's look more closely at this promise that involves Abraham and his offspring. God told Abraham in Genesis 12:3: "I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Did this promise of destiny come to Abraham because he was a keeper of the Law? No! The Law had not even been given yet. The promise to Abraham came through the righteousness that is by faith. T...

Romans 4:12 [12] and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. (ESV) Have you ever done any ancestry research? Perhaps there is a king or great influential person in your lineage. My father told me that there is a man who lent money to the army that fought with George Washington in the Revolutionary War. If the government were to pay him back for the money he gave with interest we would all be millionaires. I am not holding my breath. The Jews were very proud of their heritage. They traced their lineage back to Abraham himself. They knew that Abraham was a great man of faith who was willing to take the greatest risks in following God. If nothing else, Abraham was a great role model for the people of Israel, and continues to be a role model of faith for us today. If you read today's verse carefully you will find that Paul is making an almost...

Romans 4:11 [11] He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, (ESV) Father Abraham had many sons. In the racial sense he is the father of all the Jews. Spiritually, he was the father of all the uncircumcised Gentiles who had placed their faith in God. The  reality is that it was faith that unites all of Abraham's family. It was never about circumcision. It was about a change of the heart that followed after God. The Jews loved to look back to Abraham as their father. They thought that they were good sons of Abraham if they had been circumcised. Yet, their hatred for the Gentiles, and their hatred for their own brothers demonstrated that the circumcision they received was only a physical act. It had nothing to do with their heart. Perhaps you know some peopl...

Romans 4:9–10 [9] Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. [10] How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. (ESV) Paul is talking here about the blessing of having our sins not counted against us. He is talking about the blessing of God crediting to our account his righteousness. This is a blessing beyond any earthly treasure. At the end of our days we will take none of our earthly treasures with us, but if we have God's righteousness credited to our account we will inherit eternal life. The Jews felt like they deserved this blessing because they had been circumcised and were the recipients of the Law. If the Jews were to be honest they were not too happy about the Gentiles being offered this blessing of receiving God's righteousness. These Gentiles were uncircumcised and did not even ha...

Romans 4:7–8 [7] “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; [8] blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.” (ESV) I currently live in a part of the country where I hear phrases like, "Have a blessed day," or "Bless your heart." I have a strong feeling that the ones who speak of blessing are lacking in a proper understanding of what defines the word "blessing." Many of us speak of being blessed when we get a new job opportunity, our child gets a scholarship, or we have a good meal. Let's look at real blessing. Paul quotes a Psalm of David to define the word for us. David had radically disobeyed God's Law. He had committed murder and adultery. David was the King of Israel. He had all of the financial blessings he could have desired. In fact, he saw that there was a woman he wanted, so he took her from her husband and had him killed. There was no material blessing that David did not h...

Romans 4:6 [6] just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works: (ESV) Our goal should be to obtain the righteousness of God. He is our Creator. We exist to give him glory. Man is never truly satisfied in life until he is satisfied in God. So then, how ought we to achieve the righteousness of God. Left to our own devices we will depend on our own works to achieve it. As we have seen here in Romans, our works are incapable of achieving God's righteousness. Not only are our works not capable of achieving God's righteousness they are not preferred. In the next two verses Paul is going to quote the words of David. In today's verse he describes David as one who knew the blessing of having God count him righteous apart from his works. We should take a closer look at David. David is a hero of the Jewish people. He is a hero of Scripture. The Bible refers to him as the "apple of God's eye." In the famous ...