“”Wait for and expect the LORD and keep His way, And He will exalt you to inherit the land; [In the end] when the wicked are cut off, you will see it.” (Psalm 37:34, AMP) (See, God faithful to His word in Jeremiah 33:3)
And see, we aren’t just waiting on the Lord for our own benefit, but for times and tides to be in harmony as well. What do I mean? He doesn’t just exalt us, but He makes ALL things beautiful in His time! (Ecclesiastes 3:11a, emphasis added)
I’d like to keep going, but I’ll cut this off here for now. Praying I make the most of out of the time. Praying for better efficiency and higher quality of all I output.”
Grateful. // State Of The Person Address (SOTPA) – July 09-10, 2024 (192/530)
I guess I’m sharing all that here to keep going with my rants on how life is going for me right now… but, it seems, two lines are converging – That is, my insights on what Romans 3 has to share to us, and what’s going on in my life on a more personal level can probably be addressed at once.
Off the top of my head, the main themes we covered in Romans 1 were as follows: The outstanding glory of God seen by all creation IN all creation, the connection between faith and righteousness, but more on unrighteousness:
(1) We talked about the root of unrighteousness: And while we emphasized (as the apostle Paul mentioned) that this was the suppression of Truth, I have cause to believe that it’s also the encouragement of falsehood.
So, not only do they hold back in thanking God, not only do they resist giving Him the honor, but they also push themselves or others, to give thanks and honor anything else in creation (“because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…” from v25).
(2) We also talked about the wrath of God; He simply ‘gave them up’ ‘in the lusts of their hearts’, ‘to dishonorable passions’ and ‘a debased mind’.
I’d like to point out that this precedes everything else that a good number of us love to point out: The homosexuality, the dishonoring of their bodies, the exchanging of natural relations for those contrary to nature; Also, God ‘gave them up’ before they were filled with evil, covetousness and malice, envy, murder, and the other pleasant things close to the end of the chapter.
God’s glory is seen in all Creation, so we are without excuse. God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness, where He simply ‘gave them up’.
We see that these are things we ought to keep in mind, because Chapter 2 starts with a ‘Therefore’. So we continue the line of thought:
Therefore, if God’s wrath is that, He ‘gave them up’, God’s judgment is that ‘He will render to each one according to His works’ (v6), and also the ‘secrets of men’ (v16).
And ‘all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.’ (v12) – This righteous judgment is upon all man (v3), both Gentile and Jew – God shows no partiality (v11).
So all mankind will be judged according to all they are (both works and thoughts)… therefore, we have no excuse to pass judgment upon ourselves or others.
God’s glory is seen in all Creation, so we are without excuse.
God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness, where He simply ‘gave them up’.
God will judge all men, for all of their being, whether Jew or Gentile.
Let’s keep going.
Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.
Go through Deuteronomy 4:5-8, and Psalm 147. The latter begins with how God is to be praised ‘for He builds Jerusalem and gathers the outcasts of Israel’ (v2), and ends with how He gave His statutes to Israel, and nobody else (v19, 20). And if you go through that passage in Deuteronomy, we read that the ‘the oracles of God’ are ‘wisdom and understanding’ for the Jews to whom they have been entrusted with, so that they would be ‘a great nation… a wise and understanding people’ ‘ in the sight of the peoples’.
What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written,
“That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”
Those words were quoted from Psalm 51, where David cries out to God after Nathan confronts him regarding Bath-Sheba. But this also reminds me of how, generations later, Paul tells Timothy close to the same thing: just as the faithlessness of the Jews does not nullify the God’s faithfulness, so God is faithful even when we (Jew or Gentile) are faithless (2 Timothy 2:13).
But if our unrighteousness serves to show the righteousness of God, what shall we say? That God is unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? (I speak in a human way.) By no means! For then how could God judge the world?
By going through Romans 2, we came to the conclusion: God will judge all men, for all of their being, whether Jew or Gentile. We therefore have no excuse to pass judgment on ourselves, or others… and, lest it hasn’t been already made obvious, we have no excuse to pass judgment upon God HIMSELF, as well; We have no excuse to presume His wrath is unrighteous.
But if through my lie God’s truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.
Paul goes on, and he points out that just as we have no excuse to pass judgment on ourselves, on each other, and on God, so we have no excuse to do the opposite – that is, appraise our own works. And it’s not a question of the quality or quantity of our works, or how sharp the mind, or how ‘pure’ the intention behind it… for, as we’re about to read, we’re a lot more hopeless than we think.
What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
The ESV would have us look at two separate Psalms with a common introduction (14:1-3 / 53:1-3): The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good. The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside; together they have become corrupt; there is none who does good, not even one.
Our hopelessness goes a whole lot deeper than our works, or the mind and heart behind what we do. Here we read that Paul says that none is righteous, in that ‘no one seeks for God’ – Like hopelessness was our identity.
And considering the Psalms we’re being pointed to, we’re a whole lot worse than merely being hopeless: The Psalmist indicates that deep down, it’s not just that we aren’t seeking for Him, but we’re actively saying ‘There is no God’.
Paul was also nice enough to say ‘no one does good’, but the Psalmist not only repeats this, but precedes it by saying we ‘do abominable deeds’. And not only are we ‘worthless’, but also ‘corrupt’.
“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
“Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
Here the ESV points us to Psalm 5:9: For there is no truth in their mouth; their inmost self is destruction; their throat is an open grave; they flatter with their tongue.
So it’s not just that we were incapable of speaking truth; the sad fact is, if we DO speak, we deceive. It’s bad enough for us to realize how our throats were ‘an open grave’, but it goes deeper, in that even our ‘inmost self is destruction’.
Moving on, Psalms 140:3 points out, ‘They make their tongue sharp as a serpent’s, and under their lips is the venom of asps. Selah’ It’s not just that what we say is full of deceit; We’re actively trying to be more deceitful, because ‘(we intentionally) make (our) tongue sharp’
“Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.”
Isaiah 59:7-8 points out the same thing, but adds even more: Their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their highways. The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace.
Putting it all together, we read that our paths used to be ‘ruin and misery’, but also ‘crooked’, with ‘desolation and destruction’. There was no peace in our way, nor was there justice in our paths.
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”; Psalms 36:1 precedes this by pointing out thatTransgression speaks to the wicked deep in his heart.
If the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10), then no fear of the Lord is the beginning of foolishness – and, oh, what a foolishness we were in!
For our works and our thoughts would be placed under question, but it all would just reveal how we are hopeless to the core! Our words are full of deceit, our paths are crooked in ruin, misery, desolation and destruction, devoid of peace and justice!
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.
…and if we have to thank the Law for anything, it’s that it points out how absolutely HOPELESS we are!
From this point, please allow me to be vulnerable.
Previously, I’ve talked about how things have been happening all around me, regarding people coming against me, or our need to come against other people.
In the recent days I’ve also experienced a hodgepodge of different revelations, all negative. Through one week I’ve seen how fallen we are as a society, and how fallen I’ve gotten as a person, and how… alone, I feel.
I feel regret, over what I’ve been doing to myself, and what I’ve been thinking a little too much about recently. I’ve come to notice that I’m not as ‘Pastor-ly’ as I’ve claimed myself to be, thinking that I’ve not necessarily suppressed the Truth, but I’ve definitely encouraged falsehood in my own life.
I thought I’d counter all this by ‘reprogramming’ myself, simply by exposing myself more into the Word, and listening to more Worship, just like I used to do… But in the process I see a struggle – one of my feeble efforts versus the apparent long term effects of the falsehood I’ve not only tolerated but welcomed into my mind and my heart.
I won’t say I’m losing this ‘struggle’, more like I truly see how great of an adversary I’m facing… seeing how it’s messing with how I ought to be dealing with myself and others, down to the most nuanced of actions and expressions.
From another point of view, I actually do feel defeated, in that I’ve lost a lot.
I feel as if I’ve lost my timing, like the decisions I’ve been making as of late haven’t turned out as beneficial. Say, for instance, I drive out to shoot the sunset, and all I see is fog from the spots that I usually shoot from. It’s like that when I get there, and when I decide to go home, the sky turns a beautiful, deep orange just before I bring the car inside.
I feel like I’ve lost my focus. I’ve been catching myself reasoning with myself (if that makes any sense) to play just another game of Command and Conquer: Generals, if only to be in the ‘mood’ before I do any writing, just like this.
Also, if you’ve heard of the Pomodoro method, which insists on 80% work and 20% fun, a mindset which has only proven to be more prevalent as time passes by is seemingly supporting what a meme calls its opposite, the Orodomop method: 80% fun, and 20% work.
Let’s just say that some of that ‘fun’ messes with your mind and leaves it flawed, so much so that you find your own capabilities to think and to focus in serious jeopardy. Repetition builds habits and habits make their way into changing the way you move, the way you act and react… and unfortunately, this works both ways – for better or for perverse.
I don’t just feel, I know I’ve lost my money. All that I’ve inherited was spent on investments that have yet to pay back, or on investments poisoned with circumstances that keep me from pulling capital, or on downright scams.
I tried crypto mining, which worked very well for me until the Ethereum end of Proof of Work, last September 2022. I tried forex trading, and though I’m more or less earning nowadays, I’m still very much in the red, considering all the money I’ve thrown into ‘learning’ all this, since the first time I heard about it more than 10 years ago.
I tried crypto ‘nodes’, which promised passive income, and I ‘learned’ about how much of a sucker I was to get into all of them. All this while I was trying to support my physical transformation, which had me buying supplements on a monthly basis… and I’m STILL buying them, only now, yes, I’m still working out, but unfortunately I’ve gained all the weight I lost back before the pandemic.
With all that shared (just off the top of my head), you can see that I’ve lost some reputation – I thought I’d move and stay moving like (the legendary) Damien Lewis as Bobby Axelrod in the (legendary) Showtime series Billions, but I find I’m barely able to handle myself, and I’m more like (the equally legendary) Paul Giamatti as Chuck Rhoades Jr., only during those times when he had to take the hardest hitting and deepest cutting losses.
I’m no longer happy when I see myself in the mirror. I give in so much easier to the temptation of just bumming around in bed in the morning instead of just getting up and moving. Heck, even my workouts have suffered, in that I’m not able to do as many pull-ups as I would want to, because of all this weight.
There’s so much going on that I’m praying for God to stop. There’s so much going on that I’m praying for God to start. Part of me is crying out to God in gratitude, just as I’ve been telling others to give thanks in all circumstances, so my mouth and my mind are screaming out, giving thanks, instead of complaining.
Another part of me is crying out to God, for… well, I’ll just call it, ‘immediate repentance’ for ‘immediate transformation’. Sort of like how, in the excellent movie Office Space, protagonist Peter Gibbons just asks an ‘Occupational Hypnotherapist’ to ‘just ‘zonk’ (him)’ so he doesn’t feel like every day he lives is the worst day of his life.
I’m feeling alone, like full of longing; I couldn’t help but remember the old times when life was easier, and when I had great opportunities… and I feel full-on regret, for never realizing one particular opportunity that I’ve had, to start another glorious chapter in a story that has spanned for almost 2 decades now. I feel full-on regret, for the folks I’ve hurt along the way.
It’s like I’m back in square one, as the Godless fool. My eyes have been opened to parts of me that still remain so flawed, impacting my heart and the works that follow, affecting my mouth and the words that come out.
Part of me knows to just trust in the Lord and keep crying out to Him, just as I’ve been telling the congregation… but part of me just feels frustrated in my current situation – whether it all be real or over-thought in my mind.
I’m not trying to over-dramatize my own life, or anything like that – I just want it all… out here, because if I’m going to be feeling all frustrated and anxious, I at least want it organized.
Thank God for the gift of writing.
Last Sunday I didn’t go as far as sharing all of this, but I did wrap up by sharing something I actually learned from our good Pastor Joedy during our so-called worship ‘symposium’. He shared from Genesis 22:2-5:
Then He said, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.”
So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey; the lad and I will go yonder and worship, and we will come back to you.”
But, see, I give thanks for these times, because the more chaotic it’s turning out to be, the more I’m reminded to respond as Abraham responded: Before men, and before himself, he chose to respond with worship.
And I’ll end with the rest of Romans 3:
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and (all) are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 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.
Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
I can’t really say much about the rest of that passage, but I will point something out, something that I ended my message with last Sunday, and something I’ll end with today.
It’s nothing new. Everything points to Christ. No matter how hard life in this reality would push us down, let it always point back to Jesus Christ.
We say to give thanks in everything. Now I say we CAN give thanks in everything, because everything points to Christ.
Whether we’re suffering from the consequences of God’s wrath, being left to our own devices, or we’re moving from fear and anxiety of God’s judgment upon us… Or, if you’re like me, coming to realize the sheer hopelessness of yourself and your situations… Let it all point to Christ.
I don’t have any immediate high-impact solutions to anything I’m experiencing, from the inside out and from the outside in, but I’m just throwing it all to Christ right now.
I know that I could have been more organized in sharing all of this, but what can I say – it had to be let out, somehow. Thank you for bearing with me. If you find it in your heart, please pray for me.
Until the next post, may the Lord bless all of us more and more. Stay safe.
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JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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