Romans 10 – in easy to understand language

Romans 10 – in easy to understand language

by | Feb 6, 2021 | Bible Paraphrased, Romans

Romans 10

When Jesus died on the Cross, He died for the sin of the whole world.

Up until that time, people were struggling to keep the Law in their own strength –
struggling and failing.

By Jesus dying in our place and being raised to life again, He completely fulfilled the
law’s requirements – once and for all.

For the Israelites, who had been keeping the law for generations, it was very hard for them
to accept that they no longer needed to do this.

Jesus was enough. 

Because of Jesus, our relationship with God has been completely restored.

And God has made it so easy to become right with Him.  We don’t have to go searching near or far.  We don’t have to do anything – except say ‘I believe in You Jesus, please forgive my sins and save me’.

God does not reject anyone who gives their life to Jesus.  Every one of them will be saved.This is “The Good News”.

We are called to tell people about this “Good News” and that they too can be saved by calling on the name of Jesus.

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Romans 9 – in easy to understand language

Romans 9 – in easy to understand language

by | Feb 5, 2021 | Bible Paraphrased, Romans

Romans 9

Paul speaking.

I feel very sad because the people of my own race, the Jewish people, who are called the Israelites, were God’s chosen people, yet they rejected Jesus as the Messiah.

God chose them to reveal His miracles, His Law and the way He wanted to be worshipped’.

And Jesus was a direct descendant of the Israelites.  He was one of them.

Yet, instead of recognising Jesus as the long awaited Messiah, they rejected Him and killed Him on the Cross.

Then they continued on, blindly, still trying to become right with God through their own works and by keeping the Law.

While the people who were not Israelites, but who loved and believed in Jesus as the Messiah and started living by faith in Him, receive the incredible blessings that were originally intended for the Israelites.

So now, even though the Israelites are literally descendants of Abraham, they are no longer considered his ‘true’ children when they choose not to put their faith in Jesus.

The people who believe in Jesus and put their faith in them – they have become the ‘true’ children of Abraham.

To help understand this a bit more, think of the situation where a child has been adopted by loving parents.  Although they are not the child’s biological parents, they become the ‘true’ parents of the child because they have loved and adopted the child as their own.

Whereas, if that family had a biological child who grew up and chose to rebel against them, the child is effectively rejecting them as parents and it is as if he was no longer their child.

While the parents still love him, he does not love them.

At any time, he is welcome to come home and accept his parents love again, but the parents do not force him.  The rebellious child is free to make their own choices.

God adopts us as His children and that we are now considered heirs with Jesus Christ and God is our Father.

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Romans 8 – in easy to understand language

Romans 8 – in easy to understand language

by | Feb 5, 2021 | Bible Paraphrased, Bible Simply Understood, Devotional, Faith Blog, Romans, Shop

Romans 8

Before Jesus came to the earth, we didn’t have any hope.  We were lost in our sins.  When we give our life to Jesus, our sins are forgiven.  God does not condemn us.  He loves us.

Ever since God gave His law to Moses, we have been trying to obey that law – trying and failing. 

Our sinful, human bodies kept doing what was wrong. 

This is why we could never be saved by following the law – we simply could not follow it.  Our fleshly impulses and desires always got in the way.

But when Jesus came to the earth, He was tempted to sin just like we are, but He overcame temptation and did not sin – not even once.  And because He did not sin, Jesus fulfilled the law on our behalf and this set us free from it.

Instead of having a written law, God wrote the law on our hearts. 

When we give our life to Jesus, God fills us with the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit reminds us of the law that God has put in our hearts and He also gives us the strength to withstand temptation.

While we live on this earth, we still struggle against sin, but now we have help, because the Spirit of Jesus has come into our hearts and he leads and guides us.

But we are not perfect.  We will not be made perfect until Jesus comes and takes us to Heaven.

At that time, He will take away our old, sinful bodies and give us brand new bodies and a brand new nature – one that will never sin again.  We will be free at last.  We patiently wait for that time.

In the mean time, we still live in a sinful body and this means that we still do sin. 

But now, all we have to do is ask God to forgive our sin in the Name of Jesus, and we are instantly and completely forgiven.  In God’s eyes, it is as if we never sinned.

As we walk with Jesus every day and follow the leading of the Spirit, we become more like Him. 

When we love God, we will still experience hard times because we live on this sinful earth, but God promises to take every hard situation and bring good out of it.  What a comfort this is. 

When you have God on your side, no-one can successfully come against you.  They might try, but they won’t succeed. 

God does not condemn us.  He loves us and He sent Jesus to save us.  Now Jesus is in Heaven, working continually on our behalf.

There is nothing at all – not any amount of trouble or hardship – that can separate us from God’s love.

 

Romans 7 – in easy to understand language

Romans 7 – in easy to understand language

by | Feb 5, 2021 | Bible Paraphrased, Romans

Romans 7

When Jesus died, He set us free from the Law.

Instead of having to follow a written law, God has written His law on our hearts and we are led by the Holy Spirit to obey Him.

Does this mean the law served no purpose?  No, it did serve a purpose.  We needed the law to teach us what sin is, for example ‘Do not steal’, ‘Do not murder’ ‘Do not be jealous of others’.

It is very frustrating though, because while we are still living on the earth, in a frail, sinful, human body, even though we no longer want to sin, we still do.

We make up our minds we are no longer going to sin, but then the cravings of our flesh are so strong and sometimes we give into them.  This makes us feel like a failure.  It can feel like we fail again and again and we can become discouraged.

Thanks to God for Jesus Christ, who rescues us.  In His Name, we ask for forgiveness of our sins and God freely forgives us.

From that very moment, in God’s eyes, it is just as if we had never sinned.  He gives us a fresh start.  We start walking with Him again and slowly, over time, we become more like Jesus.

And one day, Jesus will come back and take us to Heaven and then we won’t sin anymore.

I praise you Jesus, that every day, you cover my sins and give me a fresh start.

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Romans 6 – in easy to understand language

Romans 6 – in easy to understand language

by | Feb 5, 2021 | Bible Paraphrased, Romans

Romans 6

When you give your heart to Jesus and are baptised, your old, sinful life is buried in Christ.  And as you rise up out of the water of baptism, your new life in Jesus starts. 

When you are baptised, it is similar to Jesus dying and being raised to life again.  He died to save us from our sins.  Then God the Father raised Him to life again and He went back to live in Heaven. 

When you give your heart to Jesus, you no longer want to sin.  Your heart’s desire is to live for God. 

But because of our human weakness, we do still sin, but all we have to do is tell God that we are sorry for our sins and ask Him to forgive us.  God is happy to forgive us because we ask in the name of Jesus.

Instead of seeing our sinfulness, God only sees Jesus righteousness. 
This is called “Grace”. 

As we being to walk with God, we become more aware of our sin.  We ask God to come and change us and heal us from our previous life of sin.  Then slowly, over time, we become more and more like Jesus.

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Romans 5 – in easy to understand language

Romans 5 – in easy to understand language

by | Feb 5, 2021 | Bible Paraphrased, Romans

Romans 5

It is because of Jesus that we are now God’s friends.

We have been made right with God through our faith in Jesus Christ, who died to save us.

While we were still God’s enemies (because of our sin), He made us His friends through the death of His Son Jesus and by the power of His blood.

This shows how much God loves us and it gives us Peace with God.

We are happy that we will share in God’s glory.

We can also have a good attitude when we go through hard times, because we know that hard times actually make us more patient and stronger.

This gives us hope and this hope will never disappoint us.

God has poured out His love to fill our hearts through the holy Spirit.

Christ died for us when we were unable to help ourselves.  None of us would give up our life for someone else, except in really rare cases where the person we are saving is very special.

Sin came into the world because one man (Adam) sinned.  Because we sin, we deserve to die.  But through Jesus death and resurrection, God made all people right in his sight through His Grace.

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