March 1 – Romans 5 

Introduction 

Greetings, Dear Ones, peace and grace to you!

An Easter themed study is an interesting one to write because I am coming off of the Christmas celebration, celebrating Jesus’ birth, and at the same time, I was thinking about the Easter that is to come.  That His birth also meant His death.
God leaves no promise unfulfilled, no foreshadowing left in want.  And His death… it launched the end times, set in motion the promises to be fulfilled and foreshadowing to be answered.  It launched eternal hope in the Christ who will surely come.  I am prayerful that this year, you will see Him working in you and around you every single day. Be watchful for evidence of He who is to come. Cling to the hope He gives you as you navigate this fallen world. Pursue Jesus knowing He will find you and give you just what you need.  This new year is the year, the year to rededicate your life to Him.

This study, I am taking a technique from Bonnie’s study last year, “Holy Courage.”  Instead of having a fresh new passage every day, we will have one passage per week and break them down into smaller bits each day.  The first day of the week we will read the entire chapter assigned, followed by 4 days of chunks of passages.  The 6th day of each week we will walk through the events leading up to His death. The 7th day of each week we will have the opportunity to allow the Spirit to lead us to our own passages.  And then, we will arrive at the Easter event!

This means a bit of reading and rereading the same scripture.  But in my own experience, this overview followed by the building and layering of the shorter passages really helps to see deeper into what is there.

Our weekly themes this month are:

Week 1 He Died Whilst We Were Sinners
Week 2 He Bore Our Sins
Week 3 Glory Only in the Cross
Week 4 Enduring the Cross with the Joy Set Before Him

My prayer for you this study is that you draw closer to Jesus each day.  That you learn more about Him, who He is, what He did for you, and what your response should be.

May the grace of Jesus, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all,

Melissa
Week 1       He Died Whilst We Were Sinners 
 
March 1 – Romans 5

Our Jesus, we praise You, for You are Salvation. You are Hope. You are peace!  We love You and want to draw near to You.  Be with us as we come together to spend time with You and worship You. 

We open this month’s study with encouraging Romans 5, a beautiful testament to life without Christ versus a life with Christ.  A beautiful picture of how small and hopeless we are without Him and how hopeful we are with Him. Just as small, but just as loved.

He did not die for us because we were good enough, volunteered enough, served in our church enough, or fed the poor enough.  He died because we are sinners and His love wanted to save us from the death that would surely come for us. He made it so that we could only praise and worship Him, only boast in Him.  He made it so that we could recognize that we are nothing without Him.  Even then, the goodest of the good is not good enough.

Paul said that if He had faith in Jesus and was wrong, it is still better than having not believed and then been wrong.  Within each of us is a little nugget of awareness, a little nugget of curiosity, and acknowledgement that there is one singular God. For we were created to be united with Him.  For most of us here, we answered that with faith in Him.  For most of us, we have many loved ones who have not.

This Easter season, take a look at those around you and ask the Spirit to give you the courage to share Him with them.  Take encouragement from Paul, who wanted everyone to know what He knew to be true and how He shared with everyone how Jesus had changed His life.  May God give you the strength, courage, and wisdom to reach those around you. And may you be a blessing to them.

My Verse: Romans 5:8, “but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

My Response: Father God, You provided a way back to You, and I praise You for Your love.  I praise You for You are merciful and mighty. I praise You, and I praise You some more.