Today's Passage - Romans 1:16-17

River of Life Christian Church ︳www.rolcc.net/english Romans 1:16-17   "For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed-a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith.'"   Why would Paul feel obligated to the Gentile, so he was ready to preach the gospel? It was because that he was "not ashamed of the gospel." When someone is not ashamed of the Lord, he will not stop no matter how hard the circumstances are. If he is ashamed, then only a small obstacle will stop him. Chinese people particularly need to be set free from the bondage of feeling embarrassed. We often feel too embarrassed to say grace when we go to a restaurant. However, idols are displayed everywhere inside those restaurants, sometimes even with burning incense in front of them. And you never see any restaurant owner standing at the door apologizing for that. The Gentiles are never ashamed of idol-worshipping. What should we be ashamed of then as believers of true God?   The Lord said that "nobody would put lamp under a bowl". The light of truth shall be emitted to shine upon people around us so that the Heavenly Father gets all the glory. Therefore, don't be ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that resurrected Jesus Christ from the dead. This resurrecting power can bring to us the following changes:   Change of status. After we accept the life of the Lord, we turn from sinner to God's children before Him. Therefore, we can approach the throne of grace with boldness to pray to Him, which is nothing we can achieve by our own effort. Buddhism promotes "dropping one's cleaver and becoming a Buddha". Someone may be able to achieve that. But he can never get the holy status he needs before God. Such a holy status can only be received by the gospel Jesus fulfilled on the cross. Therefore, the resurrecting power of the Lord changes our status before God. Change of life. After we accept Jesus, not only our status before God gets changed, the nature of our life gets changed as well. We used not to have the freedom not to sin. Now we can overcome the temptation to sin. We used to love the world. Now we only love the Lord. As of today, the gospel still has the life-changing power. Praise the Lord! Let's all come to Him and thank Him for that.                                                                        Pray with Pastor Tong           Lord, we thank you, for the gospel isthe power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes. May the Lord strengthen our faith so that we are no longer ashamed of the gospel in our daily life and your light will emit from us. We thank you and we pray in the victorious name of Jesus, amen.