March  31    Tuesday            Philippians 3.15-21

⁵ All of us who are mature ought to think the same way about these matters. If you have a different attitude, then God will reveal this to you as well. ¹⁶ For now, let’s hold on to what we have been shown and keep in step with these teachings.

¹⁷ Imitate me, brothers and sisters, and look around to those already following the example we have set. ¹⁸ I have warned you before (and now say again through my tears) that we have many enemies—people who reject the cross of the Anointed. ¹⁹ They are ruled by their bellies, their glory comes by shame, and their minds are fixed on the things of this world. They are doomed. ²⁰ But we are citizens of heaven, exiles on earth waiting eagerly for a Liberator, our Lord Jesus the Anointed, to come and ²¹ transform these humble, earthly bodies into the form of His glorious body by the same power that brings all things under His control.

March 30           Monday              Philippians 3.1-14

3 It is time that I wrap up these thoughts to you, my brothers and sisters. Rejoice in the Lord! (I don’t mind writing these things over and over to you, as I know it keeps you safe.)

² Watch out for the dogs—wicked workers who run in packs looking for someone to maul with their false circumcision.

³ We are the true circumcision—those who worship God in Spirit and make our boast in Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King—so we do not rely on what we have accomplished in the flesh.

⁴ If any try to throw around their pedigrees to you, remember my résumé—which is more impressive than theirs. ⁵ I was circumcised on the eighth day—as the law prescribes—born of the nation of Israel, descended from the tribe of Benjamin. I am a Hebrew born of Hebrews; I have observed the law according to the strict piety of the Pharisees, separate from those embracing a less rigorous kind of Judaism. ⁶ Zealous? Yes. I ruthlessly pursued and persecuted the church. And when it comes to the righteousness required by the law, my record is spotless.

⁷ But whatever I used to count as my greatest accomplishments, I’ve written them off as a loss because of the Anointed One. ⁸ And more so, I now realize that all I gained and thought was important was nothing but yesterday’s garbage compared to knowing the Anointed Jesus my Lord. For Him I have thrown everything aside—it’s nothing but a pile of waste—so that I may gain Him. ⁹ When it counts, I want to be found belonging to Him, not clinging to my own righteousness based on law, but actively relying on the faithfulness of the Anointed One. This is true righteousness, supplied by God, acquired by faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Him inside and out. I want to experience the power of His resurrection and join in His suffering, shaped by His death, ¹¹ so that I may arrive safely at the resurrection from the dead.

¹² I’m not there yet, nor have I become perfect; but I am charging on to gain anything and everything the Anointed One, Jesus, has in store for me—and nothing will stand in my way because He has grabbed me and won’t let me go. ¹³ Brothers and sisters, as I said, I know I have not arrived; but there’s one thing I am doing: I’m leaving my old life behind, putting everything on the line for this mission. ¹⁴ I am sprinting toward the only goal that counts: to cross the line, to win the prize, and to hear God’s call to resurrection life found exclusively in Jesus the Anointed. 

March 29       Palm Sunday       1 Timothy 6.12-16

¹² Fight the good fight of the faith! Cling to the eternal life you were called to when you confessed the good confession before witnesses. ¹³ Before God—the life-giving Creator of all things—and Jesus the Anointed, our Liberating King, who made the good confession to Pontius Pilate, I urge you: ¹⁴ keep His commandment. Have a spotless, indisputable record until our Lord Jesus the Anointed appears to set this world straight. ¹⁵ In His own perfect time, He will come—blessed is the only sovereign, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. ¹⁶ He alone possesses immortality; He makes His home in matchless, blinding, brilliant light that no one can approach—no mortal has ever even seen Him, and no human can. So let it be that all honor and eternal power are His. Amen.

March  28       Saturday            Romans 11.25-36

²⁵ My brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be in the dark about this mystery—I am going to let you in on the plan so that you will not think too highly of yourselves. A part of Israel has been hardened to the good news until the full number of those outside the Jewish family have entered in. ²⁶ This is the way that all of Israel will be saved. As it was written, so it also stands: The Deliverer will come from Zion; He will drive away wickedness from Jacob. ²⁷ And this is My covenant promise to them, on the day when I take away their sins.

²⁸ It may seem strange. When it comes to the work of the gospel, the fact that they oppose it is actually for your benefit. But when you factor in God’s election, they are truly loved because they descended from faithful forefathers. ²⁹ You see, when God gives a grace gift and issues a call to a people, He does not change His mind and take it back. ³⁰ There was a time when you outsiders were disobedient to God and at odds with His purpose, but now you have experienced mercy as a result of their disobedience. ³¹ In the same way, their disobedience now will make a way for them to receive mercy as a result of the mercy shown to you. ³² For God has assigned all of us together—Jews and non-Jews, insiders and outsiders—to disobedience so He can show His mercy to all.

³³ We cannot wrap our minds around God’s wisdom and knowledge! Its depths can never be measured! We cannot understand His judgments or explain the mysterious ways that He works! For,

³⁴ Who can fathom the mind of the Lord? Or who can claim to be His advisor?

³⁵ Or, Who can give to God in advance so that God must pay him back?

³⁶ For all that exists originates in Him, comes through Him, and is moving toward Him; so give Him the glory forever. Amen.

March 27           Friday                Romans 11.13-24

¹³ But I have this to say to all of you who are not ethnic Jews: I am God’s emissary to you, and I honor this call by focusing on what God is doing with and through you. ¹⁴ I do this so that somehow my own blood brothers and sisters will be made jealous; and that, I trust, will bring some to salvation. ¹⁵ If the fact that they are currently set aside resolves the hostility between God and the rest of the world, what will their acceptance bring if not life from the dead? ¹⁶ If the first and best of the dough you offer is sacred, the entire loaf will be as well. If the root of the tree is sacred, the branches will be also.

¹⁷ Imagine some branches are cut off of the cultivated olive tree and other branches of a wild olive (which represents all of you outsiders) are grafted in their place. You are nourished by the root of the cultivated olive tree. ¹⁸ It doesn’t give you license to become proud and self-righteous about the fact that you’ve been grafted in. If you do boast, remember that the branches do not sustain the root—it is the system of roots that nourishes and supports you.

¹⁹ I can almost hear some of you saying, “Branches had to be pruned to make room for me.” ²⁰ Yes, they were. They were removed because they did not believe; and you will stay attached, be strong, and be productive only through faith. So don’t think too highly of yourselves; instead, stand in awe of God’s mercy. ²¹ Besides we know that God did not spare the natural branches, so there is no reason to think He will spare you. ²² Witness the simultaneous balance of the kindness and severity of our God. Severity is directed at the fallen branches withering without faith. Yet kindness is directed at you. So live in the kindness of God or else prepare to be cut off yourselves. ²³ If those branches that have been cut from the tree do not stay in unbelief, then God will carefully graft them back onto the tree because He has the power to do that. ²⁴ So if it is possible for you to be taken from a wild olive tree and become part of a cultivated olive tree, imagine how much easier it would be to reconnect branches that originally grew on that olive tree.March 

March 26           Thursday               Romans 11.1-12

11 Now I ask you, has God rejected His people? Absolutely not! I’m living proof that God is faithful. I am an Israelite, Abraham’s my father, and Benjamin’s my tribe. ² God has not, and will not, abandon His covenant people; He always knew they would belong to Him. Don’t you remember the story of what happens when Elijah pleads with God to deal with Israel? The Scripture tells us his protest: ³ “Lord, they have murdered Your prophets, they have demolished Your altars, and I alone am left faithful to You; now they are seeking to kill me.”^{[a] 4} How does God answer his pleas for help? He says, “I have held back 7,000 men who are faithful to Me; none have bowed a knee to worship Baal.”^{[ 5} The same thing is happening now. God has preserved a remnant, elected by grace. ⁶ Grace is central in God’s action here, and it has nothing to do with deeds prescribed by the law. If it did, grace would not be grace.

⁷ Now what does all this mean? Israel has chased an end it has never reached. Yet those chosen by God through grace have reached it while all others were made hard as stones. ⁸ The Scriptures continue to say it best:

God has confounded them so they are not able to think, given them eyes that do not see, and ears that do not hear, Down to this very day.

⁹ David says it this way: Let their table be turned into a snare and a trap, an obstacle to peace and payback for their hostility. ¹⁰ Let their bright eyes become cloudy, darkened so they cannot see, and bend their proud backs through it all.

¹¹ So I ask: did God’s people stumble and fall off the deep end? Absolutely not! They are not lost forever; but through their misconduct, the door has been opened for salvation to extend even to the outsiders. This has been part of God’s plan all along, and so is the jealousy that comes when they realize the outsiders have been welcomed into God’s new covenant. ¹² So if their misconduct leads ultimately to God’s riches coming to the world and if their failure turns into the blessing of salvation to all people, then how much greater will be the riches and blessing when they are included fully?

 March  25       Wednesday          Romans 10.14-21

¹⁴ How can people invoke His name when they do not believe? How can they believe in Him when they have not heard? How can they hear if there is no one proclaiming Him? ¹⁵ How can some give voice to the truth if they are not sent by God? As Isaiah said, “Ah, how beautiful the feet of those who declare the good news of victory, of peace and liberation.”  ¹⁶ But some will hear the good news and refuse to submit to the truth they hear. Isaiah the prophet also says, “Lord, who would ever believe it? Who would possibly accept what we’ve been told?” ¹⁷ So faith proceeds from hearing, as we listen to the message about God’s Anointed.

¹⁸ But let me ask this: have my people ever heard? Indeed, they have:

Yet from here to the ends of the earth, their voice has gone out; the whole world has heard what they have to say.¹⁹ But again let me ask: did Israel perhaps hear and not understand all of this? Well, Moses was the first to say,

I will make you jealous with a people who are not a nation. With a senseless people I will anger you.

²⁰ Then Isaiah the fearless prophet says it this way:

I was found by people who did not seek Me; I showed My face to those who never asked for Me.

²¹ And as to the fate of Israel, God says,All day long I opened My hands to a rebellious people, who constantly work against Me.^[

   March 24       Tuesday                 Romans 10.1-13

10 My brothers and sisters, I pray constantly to God for the salvation of my people; it is the deep desire of my heart. ² What I can say about them is that they are enthusiastic about God, but that won’t lead them to Him because their zeal is not based on true knowledge. ³ In their ignorance about how God is working to make things right, they have been trying to establish their own right standing with God through the law. But they are not operating under God’s saving, restorative justice. ⁴ You see, God’s purpose for the law reaches its climax when the Anointed One arrives; now all who trust in Him can have their lives made right with God. God’s plan to restore the world disfigured by sin and death reaches its climax with the resurrection of Jesus. When the King enters, all the prophecies, all the hopes, all the longings find in Him their true fulfillment. There may have been earlier fulfillments; but these are only partial fulfillments, signposts along the way to God’s true goal. The goal has been the restoration of people to a holy God. With Jesus, we find the only perfect man with right standing before God. He comes to blaze a path defined by God’s justice, not by our own sense of right and wrong. All men, women, and children who commit their lives to Him will be made right with God and will begin new lives defined by faith and God’s new covenant.

⁵ Moses made this clear long ago when he wrote about what it takes to have a right relationship with God based on the law: “The person devoted to the law’s commands will live by them.” ⁶ But a right relationship based on faith sounds like this: “Do not say to yourselves, ‘Who will go up into heaven?’” (that is, to bring down the Anointed One), ⁷ “or, ‘Who will go down into the abyss?’” (that is, to bring the Anointed One up from the dead). ⁸ But what does it actually say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”^[ (that is, the good news we have been called to preach to you). ⁹ So if you believe deep in your heart that God raised Jesus from the pit of death and if you voice your allegiance by confessing the truth that “Jesus is Lord,” then you will be saved! ¹⁰ Belief begins in the heart and leads to a life that’s right with God; confession departs from our lips and brings eternal salvation. ¹¹ Because what Isaiah said was true: “The one who trusts in Him will not be disgraced.”  ¹² Remember that the Lord draws no distinction between Jew and non-Jew—He is Lord over all things, and He pours out His treasures on all who invoke His name ¹³ because as Scripture says, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

March 23           Monday               Romans 9.19-33

¹⁹ I can hear one of you asking, “Then how can He blame us if He is the one in complete control? How can we do anything He has not chosen for us?” ²⁰ Here’s my answer: Who are you, a mere human, to argue with God? If God takes the time to shape us from the dust, is it right to point a finger at Him and ask, “Why have You made me this way?” ²¹ Doesn’t the potter have the right to shape the clay in any way he chooses? Can’t he make one lump into an elegant vase, and another into a common jug? Absolutely. ²² Even though God desires to demonstrate His anger and to reveal His power, He has shown tremendous restraint toward those vessels of wrath that are doomed to be cracked and shattered. ²³ And why is that? To make the wealth of His glory known to vessels of mercy that are prepared for great beauty. ²⁴ These vessels of mercy include all of us. God has invited Jews and non-Jews, insiders and outsiders; it makes no difference. 

²⁵ The prophet Hosea says: I will give a new name to those who are not my people; I’ll call them “My people, ”and to the one who has not been loved, I’ll rename her “beloved.”  ²⁶ And it shall turn out that in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not my people, ”they will be called “children of the living God.”

²⁷ And this is what Isaiah cries out when he speaks of Israel, “Even though the number of the children of Israel had once been like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of My people will be rescued and remain. ²⁸ For the Lord will waste no time in carrying out every detail of His sentence upon the earth.” 

²⁹ It is as Isaiah predicts Except for the fraction of us who hang on by the grace of the Lord, Commander of heavenly armies, we’d be destroyed and deserted like Sodom and Gomorrah, utterly done in.

³⁰ So what does all of this mean? Did the non-Jews stumble into a right standing with God without chasing after it? Yes, they found it through faith. ³¹ And has Israel, who pursued the law to secure a right standing with God, failed to keep the law? Yes again. ³² And why is that? Because Israel did not follow the path of faith. They thought that whatever they needed to be right with God could be accomplished by doing the works of the law; they tripped over the stumbling stone. ³³ As the Scriptures say, Look what I am going to do in Zion. I’ll put in place a stone that makes them stumble, a rock that trips them up, and those who trust in it will not be disgraced.

March 22       5^th Sunday in Lent 1 Corinthians 9.19-27

¹⁹ that also means that I am free of obligations to all people. And, even though no one (except Jesus) owns me, I have become a slave by my own free will to everyone in hopes that I would gather more believers. ²⁰ When around Jews, I emphasize my Jewishness in order to win them over. When around those who live strictly under the law, I live by its regulations—even though I have a different perspective on the law now—in order to win them over. ²¹ In the same way, I’ve made a life outside the law to gather those who live outside the law (although I personally abide by and live under the Anointed One’s law). ²² I’ve been broken, lost, depressed, oppressed, and weak that I might find favor and gain the weak. I’m flexible, adaptable, and able to do and be whatever is needed for all kinds of people so that in the end I can use every means at my disposal to offer them salvation. ²³ I do it all for the gospel and for the hope that I may participate with everyone who is blessed by the proclamation of the good news.

²⁴ We all know that when there’s a race, all the runners bolt for the finish line, but only one will take the prize. When you run, run for the prize! ²⁵ Athletes in training are very strict with themselves, exercising self-control over desires, and for what? For a wreath that soon withers or is crushed or simply forgotten. That is not our race. We run for the crown that we will wear for eternity. ²⁶ So I don’t run aimlessly. I don’t let my eyes drift off the finish line. When I box, I don’t throw punches in the air. ²⁷ I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after all this, after I have brought the gospel to others, I will still be qualified to win the prize.

  March   21       Saturday                Romans 9.1-18

9 Now let me speak the truth as plainly as I know it in the Anointed One. I am not lying when I say that my conscience and the Holy Spirit are witnesses ² to my state of constant grief. ³ It may sound extreme; but I wish that I were lost, cursed, and totally separated from the Anointed—if that would change the eternal destination of my brothers and sisters, my flesh and countrymen. ⁴ They are, after all, Israelites who have been adopted into God’s family; the glory, the covenants, the gift of the law, the temple service, and God’s promises are their rightful heritage. ⁵ The patriarchs are theirs, too; and from their bloodline comes the Anointed One, the Liberating King, who reigns supreme over all things, God blessed forever. Amen.

⁶ Clearly it is not that God’s word has failed. The truth is that not everyone descended from Israel is truly Israel. ⁷ Just because people can claim Abraham as their father does not make them his true children. But in the Scriptures, it says, “Through Isaac your covenant children will be named.” ⁸ The proper interpretation is this: Abraham’s children by natural descent are not necessarily God’s covenant people; what matters is that His children receive and live the promise. ⁹ For this is the word God promised: “In due time, I will come, and Sarah will give birth to a son.”¹⁰ But the story didn’t stop there. Remember when Rebecca conceived her twin boys by our father Isaac? ^11-12 The twins were in Rebecca’s womb when God said to her, “The older will serve the younger.” This was not based on merit or actions; the twins had not done anything to please or displease God. This was God’s call on each son and His desired purposes. ¹³ Just as the Scriptures say, “I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau.”

¹⁴ So how do we talk about that? Are God’s dealings unjust? Absolutely not! ¹⁵ Because He said to Moses, “I will show mercy to whomever I choose to show mercy, and I will demonstrate compassion on whomever I choose to have compassion.” ¹⁶ The point is that God’s mercy has nothing to do with our will or the things we pursue. It is completely up to God. ¹⁷ The Scriptures even speak to the Pharaoh himself: “I have given you a position of power so that I might show My greater power through you and so that My name might be declared throughout every land upon the earth.” ¹⁸ So when and where God decides to show mercy is completely up to Him. Likewise, when He chooses to harden one’s heart, how can we argue?

March 20           Friday               Romans 8.29-39

^29-30 From the distant past, His eternal love reached into the future. You see, He knew those who would be His one day, and He chose them beforehand to be conformed to the image of His Son so that Jesus would be the firstborn of a new family of believers, all brothers and sisters. As for those He chose beforehand, He called them to a different destiny so that they would experience what it means to be made right with God and share in His glory.

³¹ So what should we say about all of this? If God is on our side, then tell me: whom should we fear? ³² If He did not spare His own Son, but handed Him over on our account, then don’t you think that He will graciously give us all things with Him? ³³ Can anyone be so bold as to level a charge against God’s chosen? Especially since God’s “not guilty” verdict is already declared. ³⁴ Who has the authority to condemn? Jesus the Anointed who died, but more importantly, conquered death when He was raised to sit at the right hand of God where He pleads on our behalf. ³⁵ So who can separate us? What can come between us and the love of God’s Anointed? Can troubles, hardships, persecution, hunger, poverty, danger, or even death? The answer is, absolutely nothing. 

³⁶ As the psalm says, On Your behalf, our lives are endangered constantly; we are like sheep awaiting slaughter.

³⁷ But no matter what comes, we will always taste victory through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I have every confidence that nothing—not death, life, heavenly messengers, dark spirits, the present, the future, spiritual powers, ³⁹ height, depth, nor any created thing—can come between us and the love of God revealed in the Anointed, Jesus our Lord.

March 19           Thursday           Romans 8.12-27

¹² So, my brothers and sisters, you owe the flesh nothing! You do not need to live according to its ways, so abandon its oppressive regime. ¹³ For if your life is just about satisfying the impulses of your sinful nature, then prepare to die. But if you have invited the Spirit to destroy these selfish desires, you will experience life. ¹⁴ If the Spirit of God is leading you, then take comfort in knowing you are His children. ¹⁵ You see, you have not received a spirit that returns you to slavery, so you have nothing to fear. The Spirit you have received adopts you and welcomes you into God’s own family. That’s why we call out to Him, “Abba! Father!” as we would address a loving daddy. ¹⁶ Through that prayer, God’s Spirit confirms in our spirits that we are His children. ¹⁷ If we are God’s children, that means we are His heirs along with the Anointed, set to inherit everything that is His. If we share His sufferings, we know that we will ultimately share in His glory.

¹⁸ Now I’m sure of this: the sufferings we endure now are not even worth comparing to the glory that is coming and will be revealed in us. ¹⁹ For all of creation is waiting, yearning for the time when the children of God will be revealed. ²⁰ You see, all of creation has collapsed into emptiness, not by its own choosing, but by God’s. Still He placed within it a deep and abiding hope ²¹ that creation would one day be liberated from its slavery to corruption and experience the glorious freedom of the children of God. ²² For we know that all creation groans in unison with birthing pains up until now. ²³ And there is more; it’s not just creation—all of us are groaning together too. Though we have already tasted the first fruits of the Spirit, we are longing for the total redemption of our bodies that comes when our adoption as children of God is complete— ²⁴ for we have been saved in this hope and for this future. But hope does not involve what we already have or see. For who goes around hoping for what he already has? ²⁵ But if we wait expectantly for things we have never seen, then we hope with true perseverance and eager anticipation.

²⁶ A similar thing happens when we pray. We are weak and do not know how to pray, so the Spirit steps in and articulates prayers for us with groaning too profound for words. ²⁷ Don’t you know that He who pursues and explores the human heart intimately knows the Spirit’s mind because He pleads to God for His saints to align their lives with the will of God? 

    March 18       Wednesday            Romans 8.1-11

8 Therefore, now no condemnation awaits those who are living in Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King, ² because when you live in the Anointed One, Jesus, a new law takes effect. The law of the Spirit of life breathes into you and liberates you from the law of sin and death. ³ God did something the law could never do. You see, human flesh took its toll on God’s law. In and of itself, the law is not weak; but the flesh weakens it. So to condemn the sin that was ruling in the flesh, God sent His own Son, bearing the likeness of sinful flesh, as a sin offering. ⁴ Now we are able to live up to the justice demanded by the law. But that ability has not come from living by our fallen human nature; it has come because we walk according to the movement of the Spirit in our lives.

⁵ If you live your life animated by the flesh—namely, your fallen, corrupt nature—then your mind is focused on the matters of the flesh. But if you live your life animated by the Spirit—namely, God’s indwelling presence—then your focus is on the work of the Spirit. ⁶ A mind focused on the flesh is doomed to death, but a mind focused on the Spirit will find full life and complete peace. ⁷ You see, a mind focused on the flesh is declaring war against God; it defies the authority of God’s law and is incapable of following His path. ⁸ So it is clear that God takes no pleasure in those who live oriented to the flesh.

⁹ But you do not live in the flesh. You live in the Spirit, assuming, of course, that the Spirit of God lives inside of you. The truth is that anyone who does not have the Spirit of the Anointed living within does not belong to God. ¹⁰ If the Anointed One lives within you, even though the body is as good as dead because of the effects of sin, the Spirit is infusing you with life now that you are right with God. ¹¹ If the Spirit of the One who resurrected Jesus from the dead lives inside of you, then you can be sure that He who raised Him will cast the light of life into your mortal bodies through the life-giving power of the Spirit residing in you.

March 17       Tuesday                 Romans 7.13-25

¹³ So did the good law bring about my death? Absolutely not! It was sin that killed me, not the law. It’s the nature of sin to produce death through what is good and exploit the commandments to multiply sin’s vile effects. ¹⁴ This is what we know: the law comes from the spiritual realm. My problem is that I am of the fallen human realm, owned by sin, which tries to keep me in its service.

¹⁵ Listen, I can’t explain my actions. Here’s why: I am not able to do the things I want; and at the same time, I do the things I despise. ¹⁶ If I am doing the things I have already decided not to do, I am agreeing with the law regarding what is good. ¹⁷ But now I am no longer the one acting—I’ve lost control—sin has taken up residence in me and is wreaking havoc. ¹⁸ I know that in me, that is, in my fallen human nature, there is nothing good. I can will myself to do something good, but that does not help me carry it out. ¹⁹ I can determine that I am going to do good, but I don’t do it; instead, I end up living out the evil that I decided not to do. ²⁰ If I end up doing the exact thing I pledged not to do, I am no longer doing it because sin has taken up residence in me.

²¹ Here’s an important principle I’ve discovered: regardless of my desire to do the right thing, it is clear that evil is never far away. ²² For deep down I am in happy agreement with God’s law; ²³ but the rest of me does not concur. I see a very different principle at work in my bodily members, and it is at war with my mind; I have become a prisoner in this war to the rule of sin in my body. ²⁴ I am absolutely miserable! Is there anyone who can free me from this body where sin and death reign so supremely? ²⁵ I am thankful to God for the freedom that comes through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One! So on the one hand, I devotedly serve God’s law with my mind; but on the other hand, with my flesh, I serve the principle of sin.

    Marh 16       Monday                  Romans 7.1-12

7 My brothers and sisters who are well versed in the law, don’t you realize that a person is subject to the law only as long as he is alive? ² So, for example, a wife is obligated by the law to her husband until his death; if the husband dies, she is freed from the parts of the law that relate to her marriage. ³ If she is sleeping with another man while her husband is alive, she is rightly labeled an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from the law and can marry another man. In such a case, she is not an adulteress.

⁴ My brothers and sisters, in the same way, you have died when it comes to the law because of your connection with the body of the Anointed One. His death—and your death with Him—frees you to belong to the One who was raised from the dead so we can bear fruit for God. ⁵ As we were living in the flesh, the law could not solve the problem of sin; it only awakened our lust for more and cultivated the fruit of death in our bodily members. ⁶ But now that we have died to those chains that imprisoned us, we have been released from the law to serve in a new Spirit-empowered life, not the old written code.

⁷ So what is the story? Is the law itself sin? Absolutely not! It is the exact opposite. I would never have known what sin is if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known that desiring something that belongs to my neighbor is sin if the law had not said, “You are not to covet.”^{[a] 8} Sin took advantage of the commandment to create a constant stream of greed and desire within me; I began to want everything. You see, apart from the law, sin lies dormant. ⁹ There was a time when I was living without the law, but the commandment came and changed everything: sin came to life, and I died. ¹⁰ This commandment was supposed to bring life; but in my experience, it brought death. ¹¹ Sin took advantage of the commandment, tricked me, and exploited it in order to kill me. ¹² So hear me out: the law is holy; and its commandments are holy, right, and good.

March 15      4^th Sunday in Lent   Galatians 4.21-5.1

²¹ Now it’s your turn to instruct me. All of you who want to live by the rules of the law, are you really listening to and heeding what the law teaches? Listen to this: ²² it’s recorded in the Scripture that Abraham was the father of two sons. One son was born to a slave woman, Hagar, and the other son was born to a free woman, Abraham’s wife, Sarah. ²³ The slave woman’s son was born through only natural means, but the free woman’s son was born through a promise from God. ²⁴ I’m using an allegory. Here’s the picture: these two women stand for two covenants. The first represents the covenant God made on Mount Sinai—this is Hagar, who gives birth to children of slavery. ²⁵ Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and she stands for the Jerusalem we know now. She has lived in slavery along with her children. ²⁶ But there is a Jerusalem we know above. She is free, and she is our mother. ²⁷ Isaiah wrote, Be glad, you who feel sterile and never gave birth! Raise a joyful shout, childless woman, who never went into labor! For the barren woman produces many children, more than the one who has a husband.

²⁸ So you see now, brothers and sisters, you are children of the promise like Isaac. ²⁹ The slave’s son, born through only what flesh could conceive, resented and persecuted the one born into the freedom of the Spirit. The slave’s son picked at Isaac, just as you are being picked at now. ³⁰ So what does the Scripture say? “Throw out the slave and her son, for the slave’s son will never have a share of the inheritance coming to the son of the free woman.” ³¹ So, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but sons and daughters of the free. So stand strong for our freedom! The Anointed One freed us so we wouldn’t spend one more day under the yoke of slavery, trapped under the law.

March 14          Saturday             Romans 6.13-23

¹³ Don’t offer your bodily members to sin’s service as tools of wickedness; instead, offer your body to God as those who are alive from the dead, and devote the parts of your body to God as tools for justice and goodness in this world. ¹⁴ For sin is no longer a tyrant over you; indeed you are under grace and not the law.

¹⁵ So what do we do now? Throw ourselves into lives of sin because we are cloaked in grace and don’t have to answer to the law? Absolutely not! ¹⁶ Doesn’t it make sense that if you sign yourself over as a slave, you will have to obey your master? The question before you is, “What will be your master?”  Will it be sin—which will lead to certain death—or obedience—which will lead to a right and reconciled life? ¹⁷ Thank God that your slavery to sin has ended and that in your new freedom you pledged your heartfelt obedience to that teaching which was passed on to you. ¹⁸ The beauty of your new situation is this: now that you are free from sin, you are free to serve a different master, God’s redeeming justice.

¹⁹ Forgive me for using casual language to compensate for your natural weakness of human understanding. I want to be perfectly clear. In the same way you gave your bodily members away as slaves to corrupt and lawless living and found yourselves deeper in your unruly lives, now devote your members as slaves to right and reconciled lives so you will find yourselves deeper in holy living. ²⁰ In the days when you lived as slaves to sin, you had no obligation to do the right thing. In that regard, you were free. ²¹ But what do you have to show from your former lives besides shame? The outcome of that life is death, guaranteed. ²² But now that you have been emancipated from the death grip of sin and are God’s slave, you have a different sort of life, a growing holiness. The outcome of that life is eternal life. ²³ The payoff for a life of sin is death, but God is offering us a free gift—eternal life through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King.

    March 13       Friday                    Romans 6.1-11

6 How should we respond to all of this? Is it good to persist in a life of sin so that grace may multiply even more? ² Absolutely not! How can we die to a life where sin ruled over us and then invite sin back into our lives? ³ Did someone forget to tell you that when we were initiated into Jesus the Anointed through baptism’s ceremonial washing,^[a] we entered into His death? ⁴ Therefore, we were buried with Him through this baptism into death so that just as God the Father, in all His glory, resurrected the Anointed One, we, too, might walk confidently out of the grave into a new life. ⁵ To put it another way: if we have been united with Him to share in a death like His, don’t you understand that we will also share in His resurrection? ⁶ We know this: whatever we used to be with our old sinful ways has been nailed to His cross. So our entire record of sin has been canceled, and we no longer have to bow down to sin’s power. ⁷ A dead man, you see, cannot be bound by sin. ⁸ But if we have died with the Anointed One, we believe that we shall also live together with Him. ⁹ So we stand firm in the conviction that death holds no power over God’s Anointed, because He was resurrected from the dead never to face death again. ¹⁰ When He died, He died to whatever power sin had, once and for all, and now He lives completely to God. ¹¹ So here is how to picture yourself now that you have been initiated into Jesus the Anointed: you are dead to sin’s power and influence, but you are alive to God’s rule.

 March  12     Thursday           Romans 5.12-21

¹² Consider this: sin entered our world through one man, Adam; and through sin, death followed in hot pursuit. Death spread rapidly to infect all people on the earth as they engaged in sin.

¹³ Before God gave the law, sin existed, but there was no way to account for it. Outside the law, how could anyone be charged and found guilty of sin? ¹⁴ Still, death plagued all humanity from Adam to Moses, even those whose sin was of a different sort than Adam’s. You see, in God’s plan, Adam was a prototype of the One who comes to usher in a new day. ¹⁵ But the free gift of grace bears no resemblance to Adam’s crime that brings a death sentence to all of humanity; in fact, it is quite the opposite. For if the one man’s sin brings death to so many, how much more does the gift of God’s radical grace extend to humanity since Jesus the Anointed offered His generous gift. ¹⁶ His free gift is nothing like the scourge of the first man’s sin. The judgment that fell because of one false step brought condemnation, but the free gift following countless offenses results in a favorable verdict—not guilty. ¹⁷ If one man’s sin brought a reign of death—that’s Adam’s legacy—how much more will those who receive grace in abundance and the free gift of redeeming justice reign in life by means of one other man—Jesus the Anointed.

¹⁸ So here is the result: as one man’s sin brought about condemnation and punishment for all people, so one man’s act of faithfulness makes all of us right with God and brings us to new life. ¹⁹ Just as through one man’s defiant disobedience every one of us were made sinners, so through the willing obedience of the one man many of us will be made right.

²⁰ When the law came into the picture, sin grew and grew; but wherever sin grew and spread, God’s grace was there in fuller, greater measure. No matter how much sin crept in, there was always more grace. ²¹ In the same way that sin reigned in the sphere of death, now grace reigns through God’s restorative justice, eclipsing death and leading to eternal life through the Anointed One, Jesus our Lord, the Liberating King.

March 11           Wednesday            Romans 5.1-11

5 Since we have been acquitted and made right through faith, we are able to experience true and lasting peace with God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, the Liberating King. ² Jesus leads us into a place of radical grace where we are able to celebrate the hope of experiencing God’s glory. ³ And that’s not all. We also celebrate in seasons of suffering because we know that when we suffer we develop endurance, ⁴ which shapes our characters. When our characters are refined, we learn what it means to hope and anticipate God’s goodness. ⁵ And hope will never fail to satisfy our deepest need because the Holy Spirit that was given to us has flooded our hearts with God’s love.

⁶ When the time was right, the Anointed One died for all of us who were far from God, powerless, and weak. ⁷ Now it is rare to find someone willing to die for an upright person, although it’s possible that someone may give up his life for one who is truly good. ⁸ But think about this: while we were wasting our lives in sin, God revealed His powerful love to us in a tangible display—the Anointed One died for us. ⁹ As a result, the blood of Jesus has made us right with God now, and certainly we will be rescued by Him from God’s wrath in the future. ¹⁰ If we were in the heat of combat with God when His Son reconciled us by laying down His life, then how much more will we be saved by Jesus’ resurrection life? ¹¹ In fact, we stand now reconciled and at peace with God. That’s why we celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed.

  March   10       Tuesday                 Romans 4.13-25

¹³ The promise given to Abraham and his children, that one day they would inherit the world, did not come because he followed the rules of the law. It came as a result of his right standing before God, a standing he obtained through faith. ¹⁴ If this inheritance is available only to those who keep the law, then faith is a useless commodity and the promise is canceled. ¹⁵ For the law brings God’s wrath against sin. But where the law doesn’t draw the line, there can be no crime.

¹⁶ This is the reason that faith is the single source of the promise—so that grace would be offered to all Abraham’s children, those whose lives are defined by the law and those who follow the path of faith charted by Abraham, our common father. ¹⁷ As it is recorded in the Scriptures, “I have appointed you the father of many nations.”^[a] In the presence of the God who creates out of nothing and holds the power to bring to life what is dead, Abraham believed and so became our father.

¹⁸ Against the odds, Abraham’s hope grew into full-fledged faith that he would turn out to be the father of many nations, just as God had promised when He said, “That’s how many your descendants will be.”  ¹⁹ His faith did not fail, although he was well aware that his impotent body, after nearly 100 years, was as good as dead and that Sarah’s womb, too, was dead. ²⁰ In spite of all this, his faith in God’s promise did not falter. In fact, his faith grew as he gave glory to God ²¹ because he was supremely confident that God could deliver on His promise. ²² This is why, you see, God saw his faith and counted him as righteous; this is how he became right with God.

²³ The story of how faith was credited to Abraham was not recorded for him and him alone, ²⁴ but was written for all of us who would one day be credited for having faith in God, the One who raised Jesus our Lord from the realm of the dead. ²⁵ He was delivered over to death for our trespasses and raised so that we might be made right with God.

March     9         Monday                  Romans 4.1-12

4 In light of all of this, what should we say about our ancestor Abraham? ² If Abraham was made right by performing certain works, then he would surely have something to brag about. Right? Not before the Creator God, ³ because as the Scriptures say, “Abraham believed God and trusted in His promises, so God counted it to his favor as righteousness.”  ⁴ Now, when you work a job, do your wages come as a gift or as compensation for your work? It is most certainly not a gift—you are only paid what you have earned. ⁵ So for the person who does not work, but instead trusts in the One who makes the ungodly right, his faith is counted for him as righteousness.

⁶ Remember the psalm where David speaks about the benefits that come to the person whom God credits with righteousness apart from works? He said,

⁷ Blessed are those whose wrongs have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered. ⁸ Blessed is the person whose sin the Lord will not take into account.

⁹ So is this blessing spoken only for the circumcised or for all uncircumcised people too? We remind you what the Scripture has to say: faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness.

¹⁰ So when was the credit awarded to Abraham? Was it before or after his circumcision? Well, it certainly wasn’t after—it was before he was circumcised. ¹¹ Eventually he was given circumcision as a sign of his right standing, indicating that he was credited on the basis of the faith he possessed before he was circumcised. It happened this way so that Abraham might become the spiritual father of all those who are not circumcised but are made right through their faith. ¹² In the same way, God destined him to be the spiritual father of all those who are circumcised as more than an outward sign, but who walk in our father Abraham’s faithful footsteps—a faith he possessed while he was still uncircumcised.

March 8  3^rd Sunday in Lent            1 Corinthians 6.12-20

¹² I can hear some of you saying, “For me, all things are permitted.” But face the facts: all things are not beneficial. So you say, “For me, all things are permitted.” Here’s my response: I will not allow anything to control me. ¹³ Another chimes in: “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food.” I suppose so, but a day will come when God will dispense with both food and the stomach. The body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord; the Lord is over all, and He cares about your body. ¹⁴ God has raised the Lord Jesus from death, but He won’t stop there. His dynamic power will raise us up from the grips of death as well. ¹⁵ Don’t you realize that your bodies are members of the Anointed One? So should I take the members of the Anointed One and unite them to a prostitute? This illicit union should never take place! ¹⁶ Don’t you understand that when your body is joined with a prostitute, the two of you have become one body? For as it says, “The two come together as one flesh.”^{[a] 17} But when you are joined with the Lord, you become one spirit with Him. ¹⁸ Run from immoral behavior. All other sins are disconnected from the body, but sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. ¹⁹ Don’t you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who comes from God and dwells inside of you? You do not own yourself. ²⁰ You have been purchased at a great price, so use your body to bring glory to God!