Reflections

In the final verses of Romans 14, the apostle Paul continues to emphasize the importance of unity in the community of believers, as well as their shared responsibilities, over our freedom and individual rights. The following are the key points from the last part of the chapter that I want to share with you:

1. The Work of God (a.k.a. the Church) and its continuing growth in unity, love, and holiness, is more important than my ideas of how things need to be done or how to live out my faith (v. 20).
2. My brother in Christ is more important than any of my liberties. I will not say anything and I will not do anything that could make him stumble and fall (v. 20-21).
3. There are things that I need to keep between God and myself. I need to accept that there are situations where the best thing I could do is to keep my mouth shut (v. 22). (I encourage you to read and meditate on James 1:19.)
4. I need to cultivate my faith and convictions based on the Word of God to never act on doubt and unbelief. That’s just a type of hypocrisy. And I need to understand where my actions and behavior come from. If it doesn’t come from faith, then it will become just sinful (v. 23).

As we see in these verses, faith is the key. Both faith, hope, and love must go hand in hand in our Christian life. Our faith in Jesus, the hope of his prompt return and the love that He has poured into our hearts and through which we can love others. Ask the Holy Spirit this week for different opportunities in which you can show the love of God to another person.

The more I read and study the book of Romans, the more I wonder about the love of God in Christ Jesus for humanity. If we are honest with ourselves, many of us are broken, hopeless and with a great weight of guilt and fear on our backs. But here God shows up, bringing us news of freedom. The book of Romans is that letter of freedom, it is that proclamation of liberation that our anguished soul longs to hear. The reason for all this is found in that Romans is the book of the New Testament where the Gospel is explained and presented in the most simple and complete way. The main theme of Romans is the Gospel and how the Gospel has the power to transform us and bring us back to God.

Romans is then Paul’s argument that Christ bridges the gap between us and God, and between cultures and race. Jesus is the way God fulfilled His promises to Abraham (in Romans 4 Paul explains this in detail). Christ is the righteousness we all seek and it’s in Him that we come together.

Since Jesus changed our spiritual DNA, from earthly and wayward to heavenly and holy, by dying in our place on the Cross, now our true identity has been restored. We are no longer slaves to sin and death, they have no authority over us anymore. Now we have received Heavenly citizenship and we are part of God’s family. Jesus changed it all when He died on the Cross and when He rose from the dead. This was the greatest breakthrough in history!

Since now our true Identity and our Destiny have been revealed to us (Paul spoke about this in chapters 4 and 5), and what we are missing to discover is our Journey. But don’t panic, Romans 6 speaks about that.

Now let me share with you a spiritual principle: When you know who you are (your Identity) and where you are going (your Destiny) then you will be in the best position to know how to get there (your Journey). This is a journey we all share and it leads to eternal life.

The book of Romans is one of the most valued parts of the Bible for a significant number of reasons. For instance, in Romans we find the foundations for the most important aspects of our Christian faith (sin, judgment, grace, salvation, redemption, etc.). It’s a book that not only covers a broad doctrinal body but that also presents practical steps. In it, we learn how to live out our faith.  Today, I want to take this moment to share with you something that I think is extremely important that we understand clearly. I believe it is transcendental that we really grasp the main theme of the entire book of Romans, which is, the Gospel and the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, a gift that we receive by faith alone (something that Martin Luther called Sola Fide).

Throughout Romans, the apostle Paul brought forth the revelation of one of the pivotal verses of the entire Old Testament, nothing more or nothing less than Habakkuk 2:4 that says: “The just shall live by faith.” The revelation that Paul received about this text impacted his theology and the development of three key books for the correct understanding of Christian faith such as Romans, Galatians, and Hebrews. In these books, and especially in Romans, we can clearly see the three levels of God’s plan of redemption in Christ Jesus. These levels are:

• “The just” (Ro. 1:17) – Positional level
• “Shall live” (Gal. 3:11) – Practical level
• “By faith” (Heb. 10:38) – Personal level

In this way we can clearly understand that our justification does not depend on what we can do but on where we can stand.

As Paul writes to the Ephesians, our redemption is in Christ. Today we can be sure that we are in Christ, and that He is our position before God. Now a couple of questions for you to meditate on:

Where am I standing? What is my position in life right now?

I pray that today you make the decision of placing your faith in the work of Christ and find in Him peace and salvation.