EXPAND TO READ: ROMANS 3 (HCSB)
PERSONAL JOURNAL:
SIN (verse 14): Being in the military for over 20 years and having been raised by a family that embraces it, cursing has become a large part of my habitual vocabulary over my lifetime. I say all that not as an excuse, but as a background of the evil speak that I’ve been surrounded with pretty much my entire life. I have struggled with not embracing that evil speak throughout my life as a result of the constant bombardment all around me. Although I have gotten better at reducing the cursing that habitually comes out of my mouth on a day-to-day basis, I do still struggle with this quite often. Please forgive me for my poor choice of words, Father. Help me to continue to become better at wisely conveying my thoughts without the use of curse words in my vocabulary. This has been one of the toughest habits of mine to break and I’ve noticed I slip back into my cursing ways often without even realizing it. Help me to become better with how I speak, Father, so that I may glorify You in both my thoughts and my spoken word.
PROMISE (verse 4): The promise You make us here is specifically about You in comparison to the world. If the negative things we do in this life highlight even more so Your amazing glory, this doesn’t mean that those negative things are justified in any way. In this verse, You promise us that You are ALWAYS true, no matter how vast the lies that are told around us in this life. You promise us that Your words are more true to us than anything that may come before us in this life and I thank You for that. I have been witness to many “facts” in my life that have eventually been disproven. Additionally, there have been many previous facts from science and such that originally went against Your truth but later was found to be incorrect and Your truths found to be the scientific facts. Thank You so much for giving us the promise of reliable and absolute truths from You that no lies in this life will ever be greater than.
ATTITUDE (verses 9-10, 23-24, 29-30): You repeat this multiple times throughout this Scripture. I do struggle every so often, not consistently, with a “greater than thou” type of mentality. I have noticed throughout Scripture, including these two verses, that Your people often struggle with this thinking that the Jews and better than the Gentiles. This is an attitude I have struggled with my entire life, even before coming to faith. Help me with this poor attitude, Father, where I think I am better than others due to various reasons. Under Your Kingdom, we are all sinners and judged equally and it is only our faith that differentiates our eternal salvation. Help me to be better at embracing a more humble attitude in this life, Father, so that I no longer dwell on the “greater than thou” attitude in this life.
COMMAND (verse 4): Going back to this verse that I used as the promise focus in my journal; I also feel this is a command to us. You tell us that You MUST be true, even if everyone is a liar. I see this as a command, because I feel You are telling us to ensure we listen and follow Your absolute truths and not the “temporary truths” of this world. We are all broken in this life and oftentimes come to conclusions through that brokenness. Those conclusions are very often deemed as “truths” by many people in this life, even if they conflict what You tell us. I have given into some of these at times as well. Your command, however, is to recognize that the only absolute truths that we are to embrace as such come from You and only You. Help me to be better at following this command in my life, Father, so that I learn, understand, and embrace Your truths over all others.
EXAMPLE (verses 21-26): You give us an example here of Your righteousness, Your glory, Your mercy, Your love for us, and Your grace through Jesus. You could have just let us all suffer from our own negative actions and the consequences of such. You could have just allowed us to suffer for eternity due to our weaknesses, brokenness, and lackluster ways of living. Instead, You chose to offer us grace and mercy by blessing us with the ultimate sacrifice through Your Son, Jesus, as a propitiation for all of our sins. An example of Your amazing righteousness was portrayed through Jesus as He navigated the negativity of this life flawlessly and without blemish. Thank You so much for giving us the most perfect example to live by, but also showing us the ultimate example of Your love, mercy, and grace.
*DAILY NOTE: The two biggest things I need to work on based on this scripture are my language (cursing) and my pride/ego. I do struggle quite a bit with both due to my upbringing and career choices, unfortunately. Although I am glad I chose the military as it helped mature me far more than I probably would have staying in my hometown doing whatever, but I do wish I would have broken the cursing habit of mine far sooner. I do still struggle with this to this day, but not nearly as much as I used to that’s for sure. I do still struggle with my pride and ego at times to this day, but again not nearly as much as I used to. All praise to You for the transformation You’ve given me in my life because without You and the Godly men You’ve put into my life, I would have continued down the path of my old self with zero maturity or growth. Thank You, Father!
EXPAND TO READ: GENERAL NOTE FOR MY QUIET TIMES
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