Daily Devotion in Romans 3

Daily Nugget:
One of the most important barriers keeping one from being saved from Hell is revealed in these passages. It is the one thing that can keep every single person that was ever born out of Heaven. That one fatal flaw is sin. Romans 3:10(b) reminds us that “… There is none righteous, no, not one:”. We are not as “good” as many think they are.

Man may think he is currently good because he may have done some “good” deed recently. Because of selective memory, he may even forget most of his hideous history. God, however, sees through any facade and knows our hearts. He knows that we lose sight of what is demanded of us, and that naturally, we want to please ourselves and not God (Romans 3:11).

To further expose man’s depravity, Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, pointed out more of our wickednesses. They include:

• We usually do not live the way we should (Romans 3:12).
• We are not profitable for the glory of God (Romans 3:12).
• Our tongues deceive (Romans 3:13).
• The same tongue backbites and hurts others with its words (Romans 3:13).
• The cowardly tongue (it would not say blasphemous words if God were face to face with them) can curse God (Romans 3:14).
• Our tongues can unforgivingly blast someone else’s character because we are bitter against them (Romans 3:14).
• We can be vicious and may turn on our own kind to harm them (Romans 3:15).
• Because of all our unrighteousness, we can be destructive (Romans 3:16). 
• We are miserable because of our sin (Romans 3:16).
• Unless God does something, we will never have any peace (Romans 3:17).
• There is no fear or respect of God, naturally, in man (Romans 3:18).

What a bluntly honest account of humanity. All the Sunday suits, good deeds, and forgetfulness cannot cover-up what God knows is lurching in our hearts. He also remembers the sin we have committed.

In all that God knows about us, the amazing thing is that He loves us still. He loved us enough to send His only son, Jesus, to die on the cross to pay for our wickedness. God offers all a way out of eternal destruction due to the commission of sin.

When one believes Christ is payment for their sins and takes Him as Saviour, an incredible transformation of a wicked heart can occur. The Holy Spirit can do some housecleaning and help one control sinning.

Psychologists, psychiatrists, pharmaceutics, and self-control can sometimes change the outside of man. However, when Jesus comes into a life, He can change a person from the inside out. Our hearts can be “cleansed.” We can be “new creatures” in Christ.
“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” II Cor. 5:17

Today’s Thought: 
“Jesus knows all our faults and loves us still.”

Words to Understand:
Asps: venomous snakes that are smaller than an adder
Oracles: a person that fortells the future; interpretation of a scripture’s meaning
Propitiation: payment; atoning for sin
Remission: a payment
Sepulchre: burying chambers, often for the wealthy or important people

Today’s Reading: 
Romans 3
1 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?
2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
5 But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)
6 God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?
7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.
9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
19 ¶ Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:
23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;
24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
26 To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.
28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
29 Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also:
30 Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
31 Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.