| 제 목 : Weekly Word: The Gospel Message Reaching the World Every Day (111th Edition) | 조회수 : 13 |
| 작성자 : Barnabas | 작성일 : 2026-04-11 |
"I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong—that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles. I am a debtor both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are in Rome."
Paul wrote this letter to the saints in Rome while he was preaching in Corinth. He expressed a deep desire to meet them and share spiritual gifts. These spiritual gifts refer to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. At that time, other evangelists besides Paul were spreading the Gospel, and through them, the Word had reached Rome, leading to an increase in believers. Paul heard this news and wanted to impart the gifts of the Spirit so that their faith would be made firm and immovable.
Anyone who accepts Jesus as Savior becomes a Christian. From that moment on, one must live a life of obedience to God’s Word. This is the very purpose of receiving Jesus. To accept Him as Savior and then continue in disobedience without repentance is to lead a false life of faith.
The Holy Spirit guides Christians to live a proper life of faith. The Spirit helps believers understand Jesus’ words more deeply, leads them to complete repentance, and pours out the power to obey. The Holy Spirit always guides Christians so they may enter the Kingdom of Heaven. However, many in Rome had only received water baptism and not the baptism of the Holy Spirit because they were unaware of His presence.
Therefore, Paul wanted to testify to the work of the Spirit so that they too could be filled with the Holy Spirit and live their faith through His power. Without being filled with the Spirit, one remains a beginner in faith. A beginner seeks Jesus for physical benefits—praying for worldly success or health. Their goal in faith differs from what the Bible teaches.
The Bible instructs us to believe in Jesus as the only Savior, repent of sins, obey the Lord’s commands, and seek God’s Kingdom and righteousness while living in this world. Those who are well-trained in this become citizens of Heaven. To achieve this goal, every Christian must be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Accepting Jesus makes one a Christian, but this is only the entry level. From this point, one must receive the fullness and guidance of the Holy Spirit through thorough repentance. Only by following the Spirit can one obey the Lord's Word, achieve complete repentance, serve as salt and light in the world, and ultimately enter Heaven.
"Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment."
Those who cannot leave the elementary stages eventually build a foundation on teachings not found in the Bible—human doctrines and theories. The human theory that one goes to Heaven unconditionally just by attending church without obeying the Lord is a lie that must be discarded. One must believe and follow the perfect teaching of the Bible to enter Heaven.
"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen."
People who know God must obey His Word; that is how they glorify Him. However, many Christians fail to give thanks for the grace and love of Jesus, who created all things and saved them from destruction and Hell. Many live ungratefully toward the Lord's grace. Christians who do not understand the Word and live in disobedience and unrepentance have become foolish.
Such people worship the perishing things of this world like idols, elevating humans, animals, or other created things to the place of God. Many of God’s people set aside the Bible and prioritize human doctrines, traditions, and superstitions as having more authority than God’s Word. God leaves such people to live according to their own lusts.
This is identical to the event in the Garden of Eden where Adam heard God’s command clearly but disobeyed by eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. When people clearly know the Word but choose to disobey, God lets them be. Disobedience and unrepentance today are the same as Adam eating the forbidden fruit; only the "shape" of the fruit has changed. Obedience to the Lord is eating from the Tree of Life, while disobedience is eating from the tree of knowledge.
Jesus said, "My body is the bread of life, and my blood is the drink of life." God's people must eat His flesh to live, which means obeying His Word. They must drink His blood to receive forgiveness, which means repenting and washing away sins through His blood. Even those who have received water baptism and partaken in communion cannot be saved if they live in disobedience and refuse to repent.
Abel’s sacrifice was accepted because it followed the truth, while Cain’s was rejected because it followed human thoughts. In every age, "wheat" (true believers) and "chaff" (false believers) coexist within the church. They worship and praise together, but there is worship that reaches the Lord and worship that does not. This leads to vastly different outcomes. On the last day, their eternal fates will diverge: the wheat will be taken to Heaven by angels, while the chaff will be led by Satan to the fires of Hell.
Do not distort the Bible to create human doctrines. Doing so is not serving God but serving the humans who created those doctrines. A pastor who reads one verse and then only preaches his own thoughts is idolizing himself. Do not exchange God's truth for a lie. Only God is to be praised forever. God is one; the one God works as the Father (Jehovah), the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit to complete the work of salvation.
God’s command is to love Him and love our neighbors. To fail in this is sin. All sins must be repented of and forgiven through the blood of the Lord. This is the way to keep the truth and gain eternal life.
"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error."
Homosexuality directly violates the human order established by God. God ordained that a man and a woman marry, form a family, and bear children. However, those deceived by Satan engage in homosexuality—men with men and women with women. This directly opposes God's established laws, and He is moved to extreme anger by this.
God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and sulfur from heaven because of the sin of homosexuality. Today, this sin is widespread among ordinary people, celebrities, politicians, and even some pastors. Homosexuality is a powerful weapon of Satan.
"Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so he gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy."
Because they do not want to keep God in their hearts, God leaves them to their depraved minds. God leads those who strive to realize their sins, repent, and obey toward the path of life. However, He abandons those who willfully choose to live in sin and will judge all unrighteousness in the end.
God gave all humans freedom, but if this freedom is used to sin without repentance, judgment follows. The purpose of our freedom is to love God and our neighbors with all our hearts. We must constantly realize our sins through the Word and repent to preserve that freedom. Unfortunately, many misuse their temporary freedom and perish.
"Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."
The Bible clearly records that God judges those who defy His will and do not repent. Many Christians know this but continue to break His Word and refuse to repent. Such people call what is right "wrong" and what is wrong "right." Satan uses human doctrines to confuse, paralyze, and corrupt the hearts of God's people.
"You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere human, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed."
All humans are sinners. Everyone must repent and receive forgiveness to enter Heaven. Sinners should not condemn one another. Everyone must obey based on God’s Word and repent for where they fall short. Failing to meet the Lord’s standard is sin. Following human ideologies or other religions is disobedience.
When one person judges another, they ultimately judge themselves because those who judge others often commit the same sins. Every human lives in a fallen body that craves greed, pride, and self-boasting. There is no exception. However, when one believes in Jesus and repents, the Holy Spirit comes to guide them toward Heaven. The fallen fleshly mind hates and rejects this guidance.
Those who believe the Word rely on the Spirit to overcome fleshly desires and live in obedience. Even they may fail at times, but they realize their mistake, repent, and return to the path of life. Those who do not understand the Word continue to live for the flesh and perish. No one is righteous enough to judge another. Mutual hatred and condemnation only distance a person from the Lord's mercy. God waits patiently for everyone to return, but many despise His forbearance. Such a life only accumulates wrath for the final day.
"God 'will repay each person according to what they have done.' To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile."
God repays everyone according to their deeds. He grants eternal life and glory to those who persevere in doing good, meaning those who obey Jesus' words and strive to love God and their neighbors. Loving God means discarding all idols—both visible ones and the hidden idols of greed. Loving neighbors means doing no harm, helping the weak, and striving for peace.
Heaven is reached through faith, but that faith is not a mere theory; it is proven by a life of actual love. Human doctrines that claim one goes to Heaven just by a one-time confession and church attendance—without repentance or obedience—are false. The theory that people are predestined for Heaven or Hell before birth is also unbiblical. Anyone who believes, repents, and obeys enters Heaven. Faith without obedience is "chaff" destined for fire.
Do not form factions within the church. The most wicked faction is when pastors and congregants collectively follow human doctrine while discarding the Bible. The truth is that regardless of being a Jew or a Gentile, those who obey enter Heaven, and those who do not go to Hell. If you stumble, do not despair—start again through repentance. Discard human theories that lead to Hell and hold onto the Bible.
"For God does not show favoritism. All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)"
God does not judge by outward appearances, status, or wealth. Only His Law is the standard for judgment. In the Old Testament, it was the Ten Commandments; in the New Testament, it is the words of Jesus. Breaking the Law is sin, and the wage of sin is death and Hell.
However, when one admits their sin and washes it with the blood of Jesus through repentance, they are saved. Being a "hearer" of the Law is not enough; one must be a "doer." This means practicing love and repenting when that love falls short. Since Jesus came, forgiveness is found only through His blood, not animal sacrifices.
Discover your sins through the Law and wash them with Jesus' blood. When we repent, His blood cleanses us unconditionally. Every servant of God must practice and teach this Gospel. While human conscience has a shadow of the Law, it is inconsistent and imperfect. Only Jesus' words are the absolute standard. Those who keep them enter Heaven.
However, do not become a legalist. Legalists look clean on the outside, but their hearts are foul with jealousy, lust, and pride, and they do not know how to repent. Jesus cannot dwell in such hearts, nor does the Holy Spirit come to the unrepentant. Legalists remain under Satan’s domain and are dragged to Hell upon leaving this world.
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