The other side of Christian freedom is this: bear with those who are different than you. If someone doesn’t drink and you do, don’t let that divide you. If the church is healthy and full of healthy Christians, it will be marked with unity and diversity – unity around Christ and diversity on issues of freedom. It’s perfectly healthy, and even necessary to debate. Christians can and should help each other develop godly habits in all areas. But, in the end, if a person has godly conviction and the Scriptures don’t explicitly forbid something, we ought to celebrate the gift of freedom God has given each of us. We don’t all have to look just like each other in everything, and that’s wonderful. Praise God for setting us free in Christ Jesus!

One of the biggest temptations for Christians is to add stuff to the message of Jesus. ‘I know that only Jesus saves people, but you really shouldn’t drink alcohol/eat meat/get a tattoo/shop at Wal-Mart.’ On the contrary, since only Jesus saves us, we have freedom in disputable matters. What a blessing! If you see Christianity as a dry life of harsh do’s and don’ts, hear this teaching – whatever you do, do so giving thanks to God. But remember, you will have to give an account to God for your actions. There’s freedom, but Christians are still called to resist sin. So perhaps this looks like enjoying wine without getting drunk. Or on the other hand, perhaps this looks like avoiding R-rated movies because they burden your heart. For the Christian, there’s a closed fist and an open hand. In the closed fist, there’s things like not going against clear biblical commands (e.g. having sex with someone other than your spouse, and only once they are your spouse). But in the open hand, there’s freedom to enjoy what the Scriptures offer leeway on, to the glory of God. A healthy Christian will know both. Don’t put your life on auto-pilot, assuming that you have to say no to everything, or that you can say yes to anything. Engage with the Scriptures, engage with others, and enjoy the freedom found in Christ.

Paul gives all sorts of practical ways to live well as a Christian. His thoughts in Romans 13 seem especially applicable to Christians today. In Romans 13, Paul talks politics. Paul’s first instruction is radical – you should submit to your government because God placed those leaders in power. Paul doesn’t say, ‘Only support Christian government.’ Paul says your political leaders, in the end, were placed there by God and to rebel against them is the same as rebelling against God. How might our political landscape be radically different if we lived in light of this truth? Today, consider how you might give everyone what you owe them – respect, taxes, honor or payment – regardless of how you voted.

When thinking about how a Christian ought to live, one fundamental truth must be held tightly and right in front of us always. We must beat it into our heads. Paul uses the word ‘therefore’, which means ‘because of what I’ve just written, you should believe this.’ This could apply to Romans 9-11 (God chose to rescue us without us having anything to do with it), Romans 11:33-36 (God is worthy of our praise), or it could apply to all of Romans up to this point (Paul’s wonderfully articulate presentation of our sad state and God’s wonderful rescue through Jesus). In any event, the key truth in living a Christian life is that it’s always a response. God has done enormous good for us, and this should lead our hearts to overflow with desire to serve him. We don’t serve God to get saved, we serve God because Jesus saved us. Today, reflect on God’s actions for you and your response to God.

Romans 9-11 are some of the most challenging chapters in the Bible. Paul lays out one of the most controversial topics in the debate both between Christians and non-Christians and between Christians themselves: predestination. Paul also deals with the topic of Christ and the Jewish people. These chapters can be confusing and some of the truths presented are difficult to accept at best. So we must hear Paul’s final word on the subject as our model for response to the times when truth is hard, and hard to see. God’s ways are rich and deep. We are utterly incapable of fully understanding his purposes because he is God. But since he is God, and so great and so beyond us, we simply must praise him. Do your doubts, your difficulty in understanding God’s ways, do they lead you to praise God as an infinitely higher being than yourself, or do they lead you to turn from God? Who could you talk with to help you respond to God in praise?

Truly, it’s hard to be a Christian. It’s not easy to admit you’re wrong on the most fundamental level. It’s not easy to admit that you can do nothing to fix that wrong. It’s not easy to accept such an immense, free gift as the one Jesus gives. It’s not easy to resist sin without feeling self-righteous and legalistic. It’s not easy to accept that you will still fail and sin even though you are a Christian. The Christian life is a struggle on all accounts. But Paul’s words in Romans 8 provide so much comfort and promise. All this suffering creates eager expectation in our hearts for that day when we will be more than conquerors through the power of the Spirit, by the blood of Jesus. Christians and non-Christians alike, hear this good word today. Let the picture of all things working together for good – of life having meaning and purpose – capture your imagination. Come to Jesus and experience this meaning and purpose day by day!

Understanding that Jesus has paid the penalty for our sin – that we no longer face death – can lead to confusion. Is it ok to just keep on living the way we used to? Paul says, ‘NO!’ People err on both sides of this tension. On one hand, if I forget that Jesus paid my penalty, I can start living like I’m earning favor with God and this opens the church up to accusations of self-righteousness. On the other hand, if a I makes no effort to resist sin and just carry on without restraint, I send the confusing message that being a Christian really doesn’t mean much, and I open the church to accusations of hypocrisy. Where might you fall on this spectrum? Do you tend toward self-righteousness? Total permissiveness? How you might walk the line between both – resisting sin while still enjoying God’s free favor in Christ? There is a way to have favor with God and to enjoy a new life – have hope!

Paul gives all sorts of practical ways to live well as a Christian. His thoughts in Romans 13 seem especially applicable to Christians today. In Romans 13, Paul talks politics. Paul’s first instruction is radical – you should submit to your government because God placed those leaders in power. Paul doesn’t say, ‘Only support Christian government.’ Paul says your political leaders, in the end, were placed there by God and to rebel against them is the same as rebelling against God. How might our political landscape be radically different if we lived in light of this truth? Today, consider how you might give everyone what you owe them – respect, taxes, honor or payment – regardless of how you voted.

Read Romans 3-4

After acknowledging God, the next step in understanding Christian faith is knowing our present relationship with God. In Romans 3, Paul tells us that basically we are all against God. We have left the God who made us and gone after our own way and this has brought immense injustice, bitterness and suffering into the world. Perhaps you point at suffering in the world as a major objection to God’s existence. The Scriptures tell us that God didn’t bring the suffering, we did when we rebelled against him. Today, consider that the cruelty, the harshness, the coldness in life comes from the fact that you have rebelled against God and so has literally everybody else. If you can accept this truth, how might cruelty, harshness and coldness be repaired?

You can’t get anywhere in understanding what it means to be a Christian without first having a fundamental awareness of God. Paul says that God has been made plain to us. At the very least, we can look around us and see indications of God in what has been made. Consider the sense of heart-rending beauty that you can get when you see something particularly beautiful in nature – a mountain range, a thunderstorm coming in across the ocean, a field of wildflowers in spring. Consider the extraordinary delicacy of life – complex ecosystems that hang in balance seemingly beyond belief. Those kinds of things cry out in our hearts that something greater exists. Paul is saying, if you look at the world and don’t see God, look again. Keep looking. He’s there. If you do see God, praise him. He is clearly powerful and capable of extraordinary beauty.