one step: Romans 1.6

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions…

God is much better than people at recognizing the free will of others. We as humans look at others and treat them one way or another depending on if they are or are not doing things how we think they should be done. We think that they must believe as we do, or they are lesser. We measure the standards and behaviors of others against our own and label others as close-minded, antiquated, flippant, uncaring, evil, stupid, mean, etc.

God allows people to do what they please. God did not stop Adam and Eve from choosing satan as their source of truth over God. God did not stop Adam and Eve from eating the fruit that led to their death and separation from Him. God did not stop Adam and Eve from attempting to cover themselves. He set before them choices with associated consequences, and then He allowed them to choose.

God provides this opportunity to all people. He allows all of us to choose, and all of us are lesser than Him. His belief and perspective exists as the measuring rod for all of humanity. When comparing our own desires and thoughts to His, only how He thinks things should be done matters. Only God sees all, knows all, and made all. He is the only possible source of real truth.

Herein lies the problem: we all, like Adam and Eve, choose something other than God as source. Said another way, we allow an idol to sit where only God should sit: on the altar of our heart. Compelled by desire, and resisting restraint, we choose a god that allows our desires to come to full fruition.

In this choice of idolatry, the one true God sees that we reject His knowledge and allows us to be overcome by our dishonorable passions.*

Much debate surrounds Romans 1:24-32. People attempt to use various points of Greek and Jewish culture and language to justify or deny certain ways of living.* Invariably, someone is wrong. The one who is never wrong is God. The majority of modern interpreters of Paul agree that the plain language of Romans 1:26-27 qualifies homosexual practice as a sin.* Beside this behavior, however, sits unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, gossip, slanderer, hate of God, insolence, haughtiness, boasting, invention of evil, disobedience to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless. How many of these behaviors does our culture encourage? Which of these does our culture qualify or condemn? How many of us have engaged in any one of these? I know that several on this list at some time have sadly found place in my soul.

In Romans 1, Paul is not debating what is or is not sin, he is explaining that all of these sinful behaviors establish that we are all sinners.*

Regardless of what we think or have experienced in these areas, our susceptibility to any of them is linked to the answer to this question: who is your God?

When we allow the pursuit of comfort, happiness, ease, or pleasure to lead our decision-making processes, we have allowed an idol to creep into our heart.

Whom will we serve? Are we willing to die to ourselves (Galatians 2:20), refuse to lean on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6), and allow God to transform us (2 Corinthians 3:18)? Do we allow Him to tell us who we are despite what we are told or might think or feel?

God won’t stop us from living how we want to live, but He will give us over to it.* And that is a scary prospect to me. Lord, help me.

Today, take a step.

Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to ask Him if you have an idol on the throne of your heart. Perhaps today God wants you to give up everything in your life for Him. Maybe today God wants you to acknowledge Him in all of your ways or allow Him to shape your desires. Perhaps God wants you to give up some area of control in your life.

Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.

Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a water break… we all get thirsty.

Feel free to comment at the bottom of this page! We would love to hear from you!

*Osborne, G. R. (2004). Romans (pp. 48-58). InterVarsity Press; Morris, L. (1988). The Epistle to the Romans (pp. 86-100). W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press; Kruse, C. G. (2012). Paul’s Letter to the Romans (D. A. Carson, Ed.; pp. 98-117). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Apollos; Moo, D. J. (2000). Romans (pp. 61-67).

one step: water break

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
    for his name's sake.

Psalm 23:1-3

The One Step Daily Devotional is intended to provide just one step each day for your journey with God. Every journey requires water breaks. Here is a water break for you.

Many paintings have attempted to capture the sentiment of Psalm 23. Images of calm waters and long grass and cool breezes. Places that these paintings picture evoke the desire to be restored as the psalmist promises that God will. Is this true for you and me?

In ancient Israel, the temptation was to speak about “our” God, forgetting that God also cares about the individual.* Perhaps because of the times that we have felt invisible, or prayers weren’t answered the way we thought they should be, we can believe that God doesn’t care about us. We can believe that He cares about the Church, but we can believe that we are overlooked.

Psalm 23 reminds us that He is “my God.” He is your God. He sees you. He sees that you need restoration. He sees that you need to be lead in order to make it to and through the paths of righteousness. He knows that you are tired and need some calm waters and some green pastures.

He knows. He sees. You.

Today, take a step.

Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to spend some time alone with God. Maybe He wants you to remember that He sees you. Maybe He wants you to walk with Him beside the waters and in the grass. Perhaps today He wants you to breathe.

Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.

Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a water break… we all get thirsty.

Feel free to comment at the bottom of this page! We would love to hear from you!

VanGemeren, W. A. (2008). Psalms. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Psalms (Revised Edition) (Vol. 5, p. 253). Zondervan.

one step: Romans 1.5

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Here, in these few verses, we see the unraveling of humanity. It all begins with knowing about God.* Think about that. The unraveling of humanity begins with knowing about God. How many of us have found comfort in what we know about God? How many of us have leaned on our knowledge about Him as proof of our righteousness?

Knowledge of God is important, but what do we do next?

For those that Paul refers to in this passage, they did not honor God and did not give Him thanks. Meaning, they did not receive the knowledge about God and then worship Him and approach Him with gratitude.* This failure to respond to God resulted in a sickness of the soul that crippled their thought processes and evicted the light of truth from their hearts.*

It gets worse.

Not only did they lose their ability to think clearly, they lacked the ability to see their own foolishness. They engaged in a deception of self so deep that even through their folly, they convinced themselves that they were wise. How hard it must be to turn from sin and foolishness when you convince yourself that you are righteous and wise?

The extent of this foolishness reached beyond a rejection of God. Not only did they refuse to worship God and recognize Him as the source of all things, but they turned their worship to created things. O the foolishness! To worship something mortal rather than something immortal… to worship something made in the image of a person or an animal… how feeble. How strange. Why worship something that you can control? Why worship something that you can overpower? Why worship something that you can outthink? Foolishness.

It a good thing that only Paul’s society engaged in this level of foolishness. It’s a good thing that we do not worship athletes, celebrities, successful businesspeople, government officials, and animals. It’s a good thing that we do not look to created things to provide us with comfort, peace, joy, strength, and love. It’s a good thing that we do not look to mortal, temporal things to provide us with eternal things. It’s a good thing that we have not convinced ourselves that we are wise when really we are fools. It’s a good thing that we haven’t convinced ourselves through silly, broken logical that we are in right standing with God. It’s a good thing…

Oh my. I’m guilty.

Maybe I don’t have the name of an athlete that I whisper for inspiration, or a picture of a powerful person in my mind, but haven’t I worshipped by wanting to be like some picture of success that I have created in my mind? Haven’t I taken the best of all that I have seen and experienced and chased that image? Haven’t I thought that I knew much only to find out with a little seeking that I know almost nothing?

Lord help us… it’s not enough to know about God. We must know Him. We must open our hearts to allow Him to know us. We must worship Him.* We must approach Him with gratitude.*

Today, take a step.

Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to repent for worshiping something other than Him. Perhaps God wants you to lay down the foolishness of what you think you know so that He can show you truth. Maybe today God wants you to spend time with Him to know Him. Perhaps today God wants you to let the light of His truth permeate your soul. Perhaps He wants you to see Him and worship and be grateful.

Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.

Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a water break… we all get thirsty.

Feel free to comment at the bottom of this page! We would love to hear from you!

*Osborne, G. R. (2004). Romans (pp. 48-51). InterVarsity Press; Morris, L. (1988). The Epistle to the Romans (pp. 83-87). W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press; Kruse, C. G. (2012). Paul’s Letter to the Romans (D. A. Carson, Ed.; pp. 95-98). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Apollos; Moo, D. J. (2000). Romans (pp. 60-61). Zondervan Publishing House; Moo, D. J. (2000). Romans (p. 59-60). Zondervan Publishing House.

one step: Romans 1.4

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

What about the people in the jungle who haven’t heard about Jesus from missionaries? What about those who were alive before Jesus came to earth? What about people who look at the natural world and only see evolutionary processes, chemical reactions, and physical phenomenon because it’s all they’ve ever been told?

Questions such as these are the questions we ask when doubting the justice of God. We doubt that He is “fair.” We want the answer to these questions to be simple, and I find that people often gravitate to one of these options : a) God isn’t fair, thus we should reject Him, b) God is fair; He allows everyone into heaven, so don’t worry, or c) God is fair; everyone has nature to convince them.

The context of Romans 1 and the verses that follow address a) and b) (more on this in days to come). So let us look at c) God is fair; everyone has nature to convince them.

The thought we have when feeling uneasy about c) is the idea that perhaps the testimony of nature isn’t enough. Maybe people will not notice, or they will choose another explanation other than God for the cosmos. When astronomers consider the statistical improbability of the perfect collection of odds necessary for the existence of our world, a decision must be made.* When anthropologists peer into the mystery of the human conscience, a conclusion must be drawn.* When our inner worlds and outer world collide in a symphony of interactive feeling that only art can describe, God says that no excuse remains.

Borrowing from a scholar’s illustration, when thrown from a boat into the ocean, an instant awareness overcomes the individual that danger lurks below and that one must escape immediately. This reaction takes no training. When “thrown” into the created world, one becomes aware that this place is created and a Creator lies behind the scene.* It requires no training.

The person thrown overboard needs saving. Without a conversation with someone who knows, they may not know how to respond to the situation. Even so, they cannot claim that they were unaware of the water or its dangers.

The person “thrown” into creation needs saving. Without a conversation with someone who knows, they may not know how to respond to the Creator. Even so, they cannot claim that they were unaware of Someone moving beyond the surface of reality.

Today, take a step.

Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to look at creation with intention. Perhaps God wants to say something to you through a sunset, the rain, the cold, or the heat. Maybe God wants you to share what you know about Him with the person in your life who knows Someone is there but doesn’t know how to respond.

Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.

Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a water break… we all get thirsty.

Feel free to comment at the bottom of this page! We would love to hear from you!

*Osborne, G. R. (2004). Romans (pp. 46-49). InterVarsity Press; Morris, L. (1988). The Epistle to the Romans (pp. 80-86). W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press; Kruse, C. G. (2012). Paul’s Letter to the Romans (D. A. Carson, Ed.; pp. 93-95). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Apollos; Moo, D. J. (2000). Romans (pp. 50–52). Zondervan Publishing House; Moo, D. J. (2000). Romans (p. 59-60). Zondervan Publishing House.

one step: Romans 1.3

…to the Jew first and also to the Greek

It’s amazing to think that the Gospel of salvation is available to us! Who is worthy of the Gospel? Who deserves the kind of power that God disbursed through the Gospel to save, heal, and set free?

Paul honors the Jewish people by sharing the Gospel with them first. When Paul went into a new town, he shared the Good News at the Synagogue before he shared it anywhere else.* This was more than a polite gesture, or a strategy for exposure.* Paul aligned himself with the Divine position that God placed the people of Israel in.*

God chose Israel. He worked through Israel as seen through the writings of the Old Testament.* He worked through them in the preparation of the coming Messiah.* With this in mind, Paul makes the Jewish people the first to hear the message.

As we saw in the Gospel of Matthew, both the Pharisees of the time and the disciples misunderstood Jesus’s purposes and ways as the Messiah. Many of them completely missed it in the moment. How easy would it have been for God to turn His back on those who did not understand? How easy to say, “no, you had your chance?”

On the other hand, how easy would it have been for God to say, “no, sorry Gentiles (aka the rest of the world). This Savior I sent is only for my people, Israel?” Before Christ, the rest of the world was not chosen to be the people of God.

Paul honors the people of God by understanding their priority in the heart of God, but he quickly points out that the Good News unto salvation is for everyone.

None of us deserve the power of the Gospel. None of us deserve the Savior, Jesus Christ. Sent as a lamb into this world as a sacrifice for us, Yeshua the Messiah miraculously lived a life without blemish, died the death that the sin of this world deserved, and came back to life by the explosive power of the Holy Spirit. In this, Jesus did not just make a way for us to know God, He inaugurated the reestablishment of His Kingdom here on this earth. And we all get to be a part of it… if we believe.

Today, take a step.

Maybe today the one step God wants you to take is to remember how precious is the gift of salvation. Perhaps God wants you to play a part in prioritizing the people of Israel in finding the Messiah. Maybe God wants you to reawaken the gravitas of your own gratitude for the salvation that we could never earn.

Whatever the step, ask God to direct it. Take a moment to take that step. Invite Him to speak. He will.

Life is a long road. Walk it with Jesus. Take a water break… we all get thirsty.

Feel free to comment at the bottom of this page! We would love to hear from you!

*Osborne, G. R. (2004). Romans (pp. 41). InterVarsity Press; Morris, L. (1988). The Epistle to the Romans (pp. 68-69). W.B. Eerdmans; Inter-Varsity Press; Kruse, C. G. (2012). Paul’s Letter to the Romans (D. A. Carson, Ed.; pp. 68–69). William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company; Apollos; Moo, D. J. (2000). Romans (pp. 50–52). Zondervan Publishing House; Moo, D. J. (2000). Romans (p. 51). Zondervan Publishing House.