Thoughts from the last month

Well, over the past month or so we have hit some pretty heavy points in our study of Romans.  So, I thought I would just briefly list out a few summary points for us to keep in mind as we live in community with one another.

Here are 4 "boiling points" you might try to keep in mind from our series:

1. A high view of God is what scripture points us to.  Most of us come to the bible with a very high view of people, which is totally normal.  But this causes great conflict in our minds when we read the bible.  The key for us is to prayerfully pursue the perspective the scriptures give us of God.  This requires God's power in our lives, which is why we assume a posture of humility and pray for true transformation to take place in our lives (Romans 12:2).
2. God is incomprehensible.  Paul is clear about this in his writing.  He has been able to wrap his mind around the fact that he cannot fully wrap his mind around God.  He has come to a place of peace with this reality and it's that peace that drives him to worship God (Romans 11:33-36).  If our inability to fully understand God leads us to anywhere else, we must pray for God to renew our minds.  We have freedom to ask questions and wrestle, but we cannot allow our lack of understanding to lead us to questioning God.  This is not our place (Romans 11:33-35).
3. God is highly unjust.  We are all guilty of the crime of sin and therefore deserve to be sentenced for our crimes.  However, God has chosen to unjustly show mercy on us.  He has graciously brought us from being slaves to unrighteousness to being freed for slavery to righteousness.  It is a high view of God that leads us toward a wonder of how He chooses to show His mercy on anyone at all.  
4. God has allowed us to be a part of what He is doing.  We deserve to have a miserable life story that is focused solely on ourselves.  Like Solomon, we deserve to toil for self pleasure our entire life only to find out that none of our hard work paid off.  But, thankfully, we have been invited into a faith that catapults us toward a meaningful life lived for God.  We now have the privilege of living for something far greater than ourselves.