Romans Chapter 5

Romans 5:1 ~ The First Privileges of Justification: Peace with God

Faith is believing that what God says He will do. That does not give me the freedom to be lazy, it gives me the freedom to trust. I believe I have peace with God from now throughout eternity through the cross of Jesus Christ. And I believe by faith that in any situation I am in I can experience the peace of Christ. That is Christ Himself at one with me, as my anchor, and as my fortress in every single situation. Not by how I feel, but just trusting Him. I know You are there, I know who You are, I am going to be at peace. It is not something I talked myself into. It is not positive thoughts. It is a relationship with Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:2-5 ~ Continuing with the Privileges of Justification

Life is not what you see.  Life is not what you feel.  It is what is going on in the spirit realm around us.  To be able to understand and know God's ways, and know His plan, and know that He is going to put us in difficult times for us to learn to trust Him and to experience Him.  The more I experience them in the difficult situations the more I am able to impart that wisdom to other people.  That is wisdom.  Wisdom comes from experience.  And so we experience the things in life over years and it takes years.

Romans 5:6-11 ~ We Have Now Received Reconciliation

A lot of Christians are in church and they claim that "I am saved.  I am right with God.  I have been justified.  Positionally, I am right with God and because Jesus lives He is going to preserve me through the judgment."  And?  No personal relationship.  When Jesus died for me on the cross, not only was it so that I can stand right with God, but so that I can have a personal relationship.  I am brought back to my Creator with whom I was enemies with.  I am brought into a personal relationship with the Creator of the world.  Wow.  That is called reconciliation.

Romans 5:12-14 Part 1 ~ The Principle of Sin

We produce corruption.  All of our children are born with sin natures.  All people in the earth right now have a sin nature.  But it is not a religious disease, it is not a human disease, it is a spiritual disease.

And we stand as sinners in the sight of God, not because of what we do or do not do, but because of our sin nature.  We are sinners.  And there is only one cure for the spiritual disease that all of humankind (mankind) has, and that is Jesus Christ on the cross.  He died for the penalty for that sin so that Isaiah chapter 53 can be available to me.  Isaiah chapter 53 says that when he hung on the cross he hung for our sicknesses and diseases.  Those are not physical by the way.  Both in the Hebrew and the Greek those are our spiritual diseases.

Romans 5:12-14 Part 2 ~ The Three Phases of the History of Sin

And you have heard me say it enough, I will mention it to you again, whatever a person's problem is it is not the problem.  We were born into this earthly life with a sin nature.  As we are children people do evil to us.  We have evil experiences.  We grow with the damage that has been done by the experiences of sin.  And so all of us are damaged goods, basically that is what it boils down to.  But I have a choice as to what I do about it.  I cannot work to undo what Adam did.  Jesus came.  It is between the two of them, you see.  I can look to Christ and because of what He did for me He can come in and deliver me from that sin principle.  He can perform a healing in my life as we continue to study the word.  Because after you are saved what the Lord does is He transforms our mind.  He renews the mind.  All of our experiences are stored up here.  And even though I am saved, I still have some bad experiences stored up here.  And God says, "Stay in My Word."  It is God's design plan that through His word His Spirit would transform and renew our minds to be a whole new person, a whole new creature.

Romans 5:12-14 Part 3 ~ The Condition of Sin

I do not become a sinner when I sin. According to David, I become a sinner at conception (Psalm 51 verse 5). But I inherited the sin nature as soon as I was conceived and brought into this world. I am considered a sinner not because I sin but I sin because I am a sinner. I have the sin nature. Adam’s inner nature changed. It is not that he did a bad thing, and got his hand slapped, and got punishment. His spirit, his nature was changed by the sin principle that entered into the world, which is why we need to be transformed. Salvation is not a mental agreement, it is receiving Christ and being born of His Spirit because death passed upon all men.

Romans 5:15-21 ~ The Five Contrasts Between Adam and Christ

I inherited a problem but God has provided the answer to the problem. As a matter fact, that is why Paul uses the phrase "much more."  Whatever I inherited through Adam that was damaging and destructive, I receive much more through the grace of God.  I do not receive God's grace and get saved, then all of a sudden God says, "I am going to put you back in the Garden again how do you like that?"  Nah, not compared to walking with the Lord and going to heaven.  I get much more.  I gain more through Christ than I lost through Adam.