Romans 1:28-32

Dear Father, Thank you for this time to spend in your word together today. Let your words soak into our hearts and into our spirits. Lord I think you so much for allowing me to have such a special friend in Angela, she is truly a blessing in my life. Amen

1:28-32
When they refused to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their evil minds and let them do thinks that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, fighting, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip/ They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They are forever inventing new ways of sinning and are disobedient to their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, and are heartless and unforgiving. They are fully aware of God's death penalty for those who do these things, yet they go right ahead and do them anyway. And worse yet, they encourage other to them, too.

I am adding a commentary that I found online, cheating a little but I found that you had really hit the nail on the head with your post and I wanted to be able to bring a different interpretation to you and I didn't have any great spiritual revelations while reading today.

http://www.easyenglish.info/bible-commentary/romans-lbw.htm

Verse 28 God ‘allowed’ them to do these *sinful deeds. This does not mean that such behaviour is acceptable. It means that God gave to people the opportunity to make decisions. So people should realise that they will suffer the results of their actions.

Verses 29-32 There were lists of wrong social behavior in other *Jewish and Christian books. Paul himself has lists in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and Galatians 5:19-21. Verse 29 speaks about wrong actions in a general way. Then Paul gives several examples of how people destroy relations with each other. This happens:

·    when people are jealous;

·    when people murder other people;

·    when people fight;

·    when people cheat other people;

·    when people hate other people.

Verses 29-30 It is wrong to gossip or to lie. People use these methods to attack the character of other people. To hate God or to *boast shows that a person is very proud. And anyone who does not respect other people is also very proud. Some people try to get excitement by new ways to *sin. In both *Jewish and *Roman society, it was important to obey parents. The 5th *commandment said that children should give honor to their father and mother. When people do not obey their parents, all kinds of problems develop in society.

Verse 31 ‘Foolish’ means that people do not learn from experience. They do not remain loyal to any agreement. They do not show any natural love, even for their own children. ‘Without pity’ is an accurate description of the way in which many masters dealt with their slaves. Masters thought that slaves were mere possessions rather than people. *Roman law allowed masters to punish and even to kill slaves because of a very small mistake or accident. This was a very wicked law.

Verse 32 People had *sinned themselves. And they encouraged other people to *sin too. They knew that this behavior was wrong. But *sin was controlling their lives.

Our societies today may be as wicked as society was in Paul’s time. Or, they may be less wicked. Or, they may even be more wicked. But Paul’s words are still true. People still refuse to obey God. They prefer to follow their own desires. And then their own evil thoughts begin to control their behavior. And that is the reason why people behave in such a wicked manner.

I am struck reading this because Paul could be speaking to us right now about our society! So sad that the world is full of sin and darkness and strife. Just last night on the news, one boy and three of his friends broke into the boy's house and beat his parents to death in order to steal 35,000. A ten month old girl has been missing for 8 days authorities are beginning to suspect the parents because there is no other evidence to suggest otherwise. An American man is arrested involved in a plot with Iran to kill the Saudi Arabia US diplomat thus starting a war! This was on CNN world news, if I had watched the local news it would have been way worse with husbands killing wives and children, robberies, scams, and even more. I can see that Paul is telling us what we need, that we need God that we need to obey his words and commandments and that without them we are simply pawns for the enemy to use as he sees fit. I am unsure how we are suppose to infuse the world with this knowledge. How do we do it?? 

Dear Father, I see what we need to accomplish but I am unsure how to go about it. I also see that my own children are filled with love and hearts that you have given them, fleshy hearts that break for the pain they see around them. How can we have hearts that are tender yet have the hearts of warriors? I know you have the answers to those questions and more but I ask that you would reveal it to me. Amen