Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. "They shall be mine, says the Lord of hosts, in the day when I make up my treasured possession, and I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. Then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve him. Malachi 3:16‭-‬18 ESV   ¶I love this look back into the origins of Holy Scripture, that the Lord not only spoke, but He listened, that when God-fearers gather together to share their faith, God is there. He makes them His own. He pours out compassion upon them. He promises to bless them, that the world may see His love, every woman, every man.

  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. Romans 7:18‭-‬20 ESV ¶What is it that stands between our desire to do what is right and our ability to carry it out? It is our weakness, our inability to carry it out. But that is just weakness, not sin. We sin when we say no to the help that is being offered us in the form of God's Holy Spirit to fulfill all the forms of righteousness available to us through the work of Christ, when we walk away from fellowship with Him, when we fail to show up when He comes to walk with us in the garden. So none of us are the well-rounded, fully developed spiritual beings that we will become. We all have weak spots. it is incumbent upon us, when we encounter other ...

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code. Romans 7:6 ESV ¶If we don't have something to push against, we can't make progress. Something like gravity. Something that holds us down, anchors us. We are under gravity's law. We serve it. If we serve it well, we make progress. If not, we fall. God's law is like that. It has never changed, and we have all fallen short. Hence the need for the perfect law Keeper, who loved the law of God, who kept it perfectly, and who offers to keep us from falling, who abide in Him. It is a great source of rest and rejoicing for those who put their trust in Him.

For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. Romans 6:20‭-‬22 ESV ¶Sin, Satan, the tempter, offers us escape from the demands of righteous living. But Pleasure Island, a place full of thrills and short-term satisfactions, is it's own prison. Can we actually make a life there, a life that brings forth life? Jesus is waiting just offshore, and He bids us walk to him. Do we have the faith to step out?

  And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Romans 5:16‭-‬17 ESV ¶As Cranfield puts it, “That one single misdeed should be answered by judgment, this is perfectly understandable: that the accumulated sins and guilt of all the ages should be answered by God’s free gift, this is the miracle of miracles, utterly beyond human comprehension.”

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 1 Corinthians 13:4‭-‬7 ESV ¶God is love. Read these verses again, and substitute "God" instead of "love". Meditate on how the King of the universe could be all these things. Only in Jesus. God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God. Romans 2:28‭-‬29 ESV ¶In this Paul is renouncing any of the privileges available to him by right of his Jewish circumcision. He is fully allying himself with those of us with none of these rights, but for the shed blood of the Savior, ingrafted into God's people "by the Spirit". He comes to us, as does Christ, "outside the gates".

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Romans 1:20‭-‬21 ESV ¶God is eternal. We see His mark upon the kosmos. He made it possible for us, from within the bounds of space and time, to infer His presence from His imprint upon creation, but He exists outside of it. The entire process of creation by which all things are formed and made exists because of Him. He created creation. He made the making. Not only that but the entire process is sustained "by the word of His power".

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9‭-‬10 ESV ¶Paul did not seek out hardships, they found him. But he did find contentment in them. To seek out hardships, to court calamities, to become deliberately depressed, these are ways we can try to set ourselves up as deserving recipients of God's grace. On whose account do we labor? Is it for ourselves', or for God's glory? Are our efforts just another form of legalism? See what happens when, sooner or later, we come to the end of our own efforts. Is there despair, or contentment?

And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" He said, "The one who showed him mercy." And Jesus said to him, "You go, and do likewise." Luke 10:27‭, ‬29‭, ‬36‭-‬37 ESV ¶When Jesus asked him "who do you think was a neighbor to the man?", think about who it was that was standing in front of the lawyer: Jesus. Jesus is the one who pledges mercy in our weakness, who performs whatever is necessary to secure it, and who tabernacled among us to literally become our neighbor, helper, guide, and friend. He is the subject of His own parable.

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:16‭-‬17 ESV ¶From now on I will not merely tolerate my fellow Christians with all their foibles, I will BOAST of them: what glorious, loving, generous eternal beings God is creating.