18From heaven God shows how angry he is with all the wicked and evil things that sinful people do to crush the truth. 19They know everything that can be known about God, because God has shown it all to them. 20God's eternal power and character cannot be seen. But from the beginning of creation, God has shown what these are like by all he has made. That's why those people don't have any excuse. 21They know about God, but they don't honor him or even thank him. Their thoughts are useless, and their stupid minds are in the dark. 22They claim to be wise, but they are fools. 23They don't worship the glorious and eternal God. Instead, they worship idols that are made to look like humans who cannot live forever, and like birds, animals, and reptiles.
24So God let these people go their own way. They did what they wanted to do, and their filthy thoughts made them do shameful things with their bodies. 25They gave up the truth about God for a lie, and they worshiped God's creation instead of God, who will be praised forever. Amen.
26God let them follow their own evil desires. Women no longer wanted to have sex in a natural way, and they did things with each other that were not natural. 27Men behaved in the same way. They stopped wanting to have sex with women and had strong desires for sex with other men. They did shameful things with each other, and what has happened to them is punishment for their foolish deeds.
28Since these people refused even to think about God, he let their useless minds rule over them. That's why they do all sorts of indecent things. 29They are evil, wicked, and greedy, as well as mean in every possible way. They want what others have, and they murder, argue, cheat, and are hard to get along with. They gossip, 30say cruel things about others, and hate God. They are proud, conceited, and boastful, always thinking up new ways to do evil.
These people don't respect their parents. 31They are stupid, unreliable, and don't have any love or pity for others. 32They know God has said that anyone who acts this way deserves to die. But they keep on doing evil things, and they even encourage others to do them.
Do you know what it looks like when God finally gets so frustrated He says "Fine...do whatever you wish!"? Well, look around. It's America.
Homosexuality
Greed
Murder
Cheating
Gossip
Conceit
Boastfulness
It's difficult to believe it could come to this when God took the time to reveal all the truths about Himself to us. Yet...we just weren't interested. We chose to go our own way...so God said "OK". We completely disregarded God and worshiped the creation rather than the God who made it.
All in all, we made a royal mess out of things and God decided we didn't even have enough sense left in us to get it right. So...He sent His son.
It turns out to be a very good thing that God placed all the power of salvation in the Gospel, instead of in us...because we all need redemption. Every last one of us. And, I have a feeling that if it were left up to our own power we couldn't get there from here.
But, we were some of the lucky ones. We were given a chance to hear the story. Next time we feel blessed that we have put those ugly days behind us we need to get on our knees and thank God that he provided a redemption that was irresistible. When we heard the story we were hooked. I can't imagine a greater gift than grace...except possible a grace that cannot be ignored.
Live boldly out there today...
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