Hello my friend Dr. Brad Miller here with the Daily Bible Refresh.

This is your daily reading of the Bible from a progressive point of view.

In a bit I will read the New Testament lessons selected from the Revised Common Lectionary for this very day.

The reading is understandable.

I use the message version relatable.

Please listen to the points to ponder and applicable with action steps you can take.

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Here's today's reading and we're reading today From Romans chapter 3, verses 21 through 31 from the Message God has set things right.

But in our time something new has been added.

What Moses and the prophets witness through all those years has happened.

The God setting things right that we read or that we read about has become Jesus setting things right for us.

And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in Him.

For there is no difference between us and them in this.

Since we've compiled this long and sorry record as sinners, both us and them, and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us.

God did it for us out of sheer generosity.

He put us in the right standing with Himself, a pure gift.

He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be.

And he did it by the means of Jesus Christ.

God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear the world of sin.

Having faith in him sets us in the clear.

God decided on this course of action in full view of the public to set the world in the clear with Himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured.

This is not only clear, but it's now.

This is current history.

God sets things right.

He also makes it possible for us to live in his righteousness.

So where does that leave our proud Jewish insider claims and counterclaims?

Cancelled.

Yes, cancelled.

What we've learned is this.

God does not respond to what we do.

We respond to what God does.

We finally figured it out.

Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.

And where does that leave our proud Jewish claim of having a corner on God also cancelled.

God is the God of outsider non Jews as well as insider Jews.

How could it be otherwise since there is only one God?

God sets right all who welcome his action and enter into it, but those who follow our religious system and those who have never heard of our religion.

But by shifting our focus from what we do to what God does, then we cancel out all of our careful keeping of the rules in ways God has commanded the not at all.

What happens in fact is that by putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.

Well, what a great reading of the scripture and thank you friends for joining me today for just a few minutes as we go a little bit deeper into this story, this long record that really this passage of scripture talks about, but really talks about also the gift that is really something that we can chew on.

So let's dig into three points to ponder about this passage.

Point one is this.

The playing field isn't just level, it never existed.

Paul builds to this extraordinary moment where he says there is no difference between us and them.

Close quote.

And in context, he's talking about the big dividing line of this world from his context between Jews and non Jews, insiders and outsiders, they religiously observant and everyone else.

And he says canceled.

The whole hierarchy is canceled.

God is the out, the God of outsider non Jews as well as insider Jews.

Now from a progressive faith perspective, this is dynamite.

Paul is dismantling, blowing up as it were, the very system he grew up in.

The idea that some people have a corner on God because of their heritage, their rule keeping, their religious pedigree.

And he's not really being subtle about it, is he?

He says the proud insider claims are canceled.

Now translate that to today.

Every time the church draws a line between who's in and who's out based on anything, based on denomination, on doctrine, on sexuality, on politics, whatever the marker is, Paul's words push back on that there is no difference.

God's generosity doesn't check your credentials.

It never did.

Point to ponder number two.

Grace is the starting point, not the reward.

Here's where this passage kind of flips the script on so much of what many of us have absorbed growing up and a lot of us were kind of a handed of faith that worked like a transaction that is like behave correctly, believe correctly and then God will accept you aren't first received.

Second is kind of the message.

But Paul says it works entirely the other way around.

God does not respond to what we do.

We respond to what God does.

Close quote from Paul.

Now read that again.

God doesn't respond to what we do, we respond to what God does.

That is God makes the first move.

Grace comes first, acceptance comes first.

And then out of that security, that belovedness, we figure out how to live.

I kind of figured that out with my own adult children and my grandchildren.

We.

We don't earn love by being good.

We love them anyhow.

They had it before they took, took their first breath.

And when they messed up, which they do and which I do, they're still loved.

Every minute.

Not every once in a while, every minute.

And my love is never withdrawn from my children or my grandchildren, no matter what is the foundation they stand on while they learn right from wrong.

For instance.

And that's what Paul is describing here.

God's grace isn't the prize at the end of a course.

It's the ground under your feet before you even start.

Point to ponder number three.

This isn't the end of ethics, it's the beginning of real ones.

Now, Paul anticipates the obvious question, and I love that he does anticipate this, because it's clearly the question every skeptic and every rule follower asks.

It's this.

If it's all grace, then does anything we do matter?

Can we just toss out the rules?

And Paul says, essentially, no, You've got it backwards.

By putting that entire way of life in its proper place, we confirm it.

That is, when you stop doing good things out of fear or obligation or the desperate need to earn God's approval, you're finally free to do good things for the right reasons.

Out of love, out of gratitude, out of genuine care for your neighbor.

I kind of see this in the cancer podcast that I do, dealing with cancer impacted people.

The people who show up for others most powerfully aren't the ones operating out of some sort of a guilt complex.

They're the ones who've received as much grace on their own, and they're out of their suffering.

Their love just overflows.

They visit the sick, they make meals, they sit in waiting rooms.

Not to check a box, because I know what it's like to be on the receiving end of unmerited kindness.

That's the ethics that flow from grace.

And they're deeper and more sustainable than anything that duty alone can produce.

Let's talk about an action step.

Here's my invitation for today.

Identify one area of your life where you've been trying to earn what's already been given.

Maybe it's God's approval.

Maybe it's someone else's love, maybe it's your own sense of worthiness.

And I want you to consciously set that burden down just for today.

Perhaps stop climbing a hard path to prove something to somebody else and just receive the gift.

Let the generosity of God be enough and then notice when you stop striving for it what kind of love and goodness flows out in your life naturally.

That's the life that Paul is describing here.

That's responding to what God has already done.

We're going to come back with a prayer here in just a minute.

Just a quick reminder that we have a great resource just for you called the ABC 1, 2, 3 Bible study method.

You go to our website, voiceofgoddaily.com free to you.

Let's pray.

God, we confess that most of us have been climbing and climbing, climbing, climbing.

Try to earn your love to try to prove we're worthy, climbing to stay ahead of the people we secretly think are less deserving than we are.

And we're tired.

And so today we hear Paul's words and we want to believe them.

It's a pure gift out of sure generosity, no difference between us and them.

Let's help us receive them not as an idea we agree with, but as the ground we actually stand on.

When the old voice kicks in, the one that says we haven't done enough, believe enough, been enough, remind us that you moved first.

You always move first.

And God, for everyone listening who's been told they're on the outside and they don't qualify, that the gift isn't for them, would you please make it crystal clear and unmistakably clear today that you are their God too.

No corners, no insider claims, just wide, reckless, sheer generosity.

Now free us to live like people who've been loved not to earn anything, but because we can't help it, let goodness flow out of us the way laughter flows out of a delighted heart.

We trust in you today for just this.

Amen.

My friend.

I am delighted you chose to join me for today's reading.

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My name is Dr. Brad Miller and I'll be right here tomorrow with your Daily Bible Refresh.

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Remember, God's loyal love doesn't run out.

His merciful love hasn't dried up.

It's created new every morning.