Breaking Free, a study of religious performance based on Romans 4:1 12 on the daily Bible refresh with Dr.

Brad Miller.

Hello good people.

Welcome to Daily Bible Refresh.

So happy that you joined me here today.

As we get into the Scriptures, the selected reading for this very day for the New Testament, the Message version, we make the Bible reading of the Bible understandable, relatable.

By offering you a couple of points to ponder and applicable, we gave you an action step.

We take the daily readings from the Revised Common Lectionary.

We're in year C and this is the Lenten season and we make the Bible understandable, relatable and applicable.

We do all that from our website, the Voice of God Daily, which is your home of the ABC 123 Bible study method.

We have a prayer, we do all of that in under 10 minutes or so.

Let's have our reading for today.

It's from Romans 4:1 12 reading from the Message Trusting God so how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, in this new way of looking at things?

If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it.

But the story we're given as a God story, not an Abraham story.

What we read in Scripture is Abraham entered into what God was doing for him and that was the turning point.

He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.

If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay.

We don't call your wages a gift.

But if you see that a job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do and you trust him to do it, you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long you worked.

Well, that trusting him to do it is what gets you set right with God by God, a sheer gift.

David confirms this way of looking at it, saying that the one who trusts God to do the putting everything right without insisting on having to say in it is one fortunate man.

Fortunate those crimes are whisked away, whose sins are wiped clean from the slate.

Fortunate the person against whom the Lord does not keep score.

Do you think for a minute that his blessing is only pronounced over those of us who keep our religious ways and are circumcised?

Or do you think it possible that the blessing could be given to those who never even heard of our ways, who were never brought up in the disciplines of God?

We all agree, don't we, that if it was embracing what God did for him that Abraham was declared fit before God.

Now think what that declaration made before or after he has marked by the covenant rite of circumcision.

That's right, before he was marked.

That means that he underwent circumcision as evidence and confirmation of what God had done long before to bring him into his acceptable standing with himself, an act of God he has embraced his whole life.

And it means further that Abraham is father of all people who embrace what God does for them while they are still on the outs with God, as yet unidentified as God in an uncircumcised condition.

It is precisely these people in this condition who are called set right by God and with God.

Abraham is also of course, father of those who have under God their undergone the religious rite of circumcision not just because of the ritual, but because they were willing to live in the risky faith embrace of God's action before them, the way Abraham lived long before he was marked by circumcision.

Hmm.

Well, today's reflection we are talking about where Paul really challenges us to rethink what it means to be in a right relationship with God.

This is kind of a complex passage to be sure, but it holds a revolutionary message about faith, inclusion and divine acceptance.

Let's talk about some points to ponder.

The first one is faith as radical trust, not religious performance.

Paul uses Abraham to show us something groundbreaking in our relationship with God isn't about religious achievements or moral scorekeeping.

Abraham's story reveals that genuine faith is about trusting in God's goodness and inclusion rather than trying to earn a divine approval through religious practices.

This was radical in Paul's time and it remains radical today.

Second thing is about breaking down religious barriers.

Paul deliberately challenges the religious gatekeeping of his day by emphasizing that Abraham was declared righteous before circumcision.

Paul dismantles the idea that certain religious markers or traditions make some people more acceptable to God than others.

In our contemporary context, this calls us to examine what artificial barriers we might be creating in our faith community.

The universal welcome as a God thing, as a divine reality, perhaps the most revolutionary thing.

But what Paul is talking about here is that Abraham is the father of all who trust God, regardless of their religious background or status.

This passage portrays God as radically inclusive, reaching far beyond religious boundaries to embrace all humanity.

And this challenges to expand our understanding of who belongs in God's family.

Here's our action step for the day.

Identify a way you might be creating some religious or social barriers in your own life or community and maybe some assumption who's in or who's out, or judgment about other people's spiritual practices.

Choose a concrete way to break down these barriers.

This could mean reaching out to someone from a different faith background than yourself.

Or maybe challenging exclusive language in your community, or examining how your own biases hurt you in relationship to others about who belongs we're going to pray in just a moment, but did want you to know that one of the things that you can really do to enhance your own Bible study besides listening to the Daily Bible Refresh every day is to have your own Bible study time.

And we offer you a free resource.

It's called the ABC 123 Bible Study Guide.

You can find it at voiceofgoddaily.com it's free to you the ABC 123 Bible Study Guide let's pray God, you are divine love and we confess we often try to earn what you freely give.

Help us release our grip on religious performance and trust in your boundless grace.

When we're tempted to draw lines between us and them, remind us of your radical welcome.

Give us courage to challenge systems of religious gatekeeping and wisdom to see your presence in unexpected places and people guide us.

Word of faith that breaks down rather than builds them up in the spirit of love and inclusion.

Amen.

Well, it's always great to be with you here on Daily Bible Refresh.

I love to be be with you.

Hope that you'll join me again tomorrow.

We usually drop these episodes before 6:00am Eastern Time.

Please come join me in my mission to put the audible word of God into 2 million years.

That's a million people by 2028.

You do so by joining me here tomorrow on Daily Bible Refresh and bring a friend.

Until then, remember that God's loyal love doesn't run out.

His merciful love hasn't dried up, it's created new every morning.