![]() ![]() ![]() 20 It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. So from Jerusalem all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. 18 I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done- 19 by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. He gave me the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.ġ7 Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. 15 Yet I have written you quite boldly on some points to remind you of them again, because of the grace God gave me 16 to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. Prayerġ4 I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. ‘The wages of sin is death’, but the gift from the everlasting God is ‘eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 6:23). For us, eternal life is not automatic or natural. God’s everlasting nature is part of who he is. The psalmist reminds us that we return to dust as mortals (v.3), we are like new grass that by the evening is dry and withered (vv.5–6), and our usual life span is seventy or eighty years (v.10). Yet we know only too well the fragility of human life. God is eternal, ‘From everlasting to everlasting you are God’ (Psalm 90:2b). His overwhelming feeling was gratitude and praise because no matter what he had done wrong, he knew that he was forgiven and could know relationship with God.Īs Christians, we can look forward to that relationship lasting for ever. That could seem very negative, but actually for Paul it was quite the opposite. It is not that he got worse it is simply that, through the awesome power of God’s presence, he became more and more aware of the light shining in his heart. ![]() Finally, he described himself as ‘the worst of sinners’! (1 Timothy 1:16). Later on, he called himself ‘less than the least of all God's people’ (Ephesians 3:8). The apostle Paul started out by describing himself as ‘the least of the apostles’ (1 Corinthians 15:9). The longer we spend in God’s presence the more the light shines and highlights our sin. The psalmist says, ‘Lord, you have been our dwelling-place… You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence’ (vv.1a, 8). The light of God’s presence reveals the dark places in our hearts – the sins we would like to conceal even from ourselves. He said he realised how sinful his life had been and how much he had been forgiven. A few weeks later, on the Alpha Weekend, he encountered Jesus and was filled with the Holy Spirit. I remember a man in our small group on Alpha saying that he could not understand the concept of ‘sin’, as he ‘led a good life and was not really aware of anything wrong in his life’. Commentary His presence reveals our secret sins Yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,įor they quickly pass, and we fly away. Our secret sins in the light of your presence.ĩ All our days pass away under your wrath They are like the new grass of the morning:Ĩ You have set our iniquities before you, Psalm 90 A prayer of Moses the man of God.įrom everlasting to everlasting you are God.ĥ Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death. ![]()
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