Verse of the Day 1/6

Through the Bible -Genesis 16-17, Romans 6

 

Good morning,

I read the following statement the other day- " if we walk away from the Jesus of the gospel, we walk away from eternal riches. The cost of nondiscipleship is profoundly greater for us than the cost of discipleship. For when we abandon the trinkets of this world and respond to the radical invitation of Jesus, we discover the infinite treasure of knowing and experiencing him."  - David Platt.   It made me think of Abram, being called to leave Ur, the center of society at the time with everything that the city had to offer.  He rejected what the world was offering to follow God.  It took faith to do this and this faith was counted as righteousness, by which he was placed in right standing before God.

For today's verse we'll go to Romans 4.

Romans 4:23-24 (New International Version, ©2010)  The words "it was credited to him" were written not for him alone, ²⁴ but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.

John MacArthur writes,"All scripture has universal application (2 Tim. 3:16-17), and Abraham's experience is no exception.  If Abraham was justified by faith, then all others are justified on the same basis."  This faith requires action.

Making a commitment to know God better this year will cause us to make decisions in how we spend our time.  The time spent going after "trinkets" is time that cannot be given to growing in God's grace.  However we spend our time, we should look at how we spend it as an investment.  Will we spend time going after and learning all about the latest "trinkets" and gadgets that in a few months  or a year will be obsolete?  Or will we invest it in something that will last through eternity?

 

John 17:3 (New Living Translation)  " And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth."

Blessings,

Mike

mikevw@bellsouth.net
mikesvotd.blogspot.com

 

Romans 4:20-25 (English Standard Version)

²⁰No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, ²¹fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. ²²That is why his faith was "counted to him as righteousness." ²³But the words "it was counted to him" were not written for his sake alone, ²⁴but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, ²⁵ who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.