Romans 1:24-25 A Slippery Slope

Today's passage paints a picture of the reality around us in our 21st century Western Culture. Worshiping the creation. Distorted views of sexuality. Greed and lust. Paul’s letter to the Roman church begins by showing how rebellious humanity is against God. In our depravity, we take the beautiful gifts of God and exchange them for something cheap and distorted, thinking that our own thoughts and deeds are better than God’s ways. Not much different than the original sin in the Garden, is it? As a result, humanity finds itself twisted, proud, full of strife.

We may read this passage and say to ourselves, “I’m not evil like that,” but the wicked behavior Paul describes began by individuals exchanging God’s truth with their own.The slippery slope of increased sinfulness begins with gradual distortion of the truth of God.

Perhaps the hardest part of this passage is Paul writing, “And He gave them over.” What? Why would God allow His children to fall like that, to be ‘given over’ to sin? Wouldn’t a good parent allow a child to skin her nose, but not break her neck?

Stop us from our own destruction!

Ah, the mystery of free will. I don’t know the answer to the question of God’s giving us free will, but I do know we need a savior because we refuse to acknowledge God’s rightful place. In the rest of Romans, Paul describes the beauty of God’s redemption, the redemption of willful, broken, sinful, and wicked people who did not regard Him.

How can you give God His rightful place in your heart today?

- Jen Hooker