Unashamed Reading Plan – W2D2
Check out all the previous Unashamed readings here.
Unashamed Reading Plan | Week 2 | Day 2
Prayer
Allow some silence for your soul to catch up with your body. Thank God for time to spend with Him and ask Him to meet with you.
Bible Reading: Romans 1:21-25
Read these verses three times slowly.
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.
Reflection & Questions
We are looking this week at what is wrong with the world. The truth is we don’t have to look much further than our own hearts to see the problem of sin. But Paul gets to the core of what has gone wrong with the world in these verses. Paul puts it so simply: “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.” When you make a deal, an exchange, usually you want to make sure you come out at least even. But the exchange humanity has made is utterly and devastatingly bad. Let’s break it down.
- Instead of truth, we choose to believe a lie. No one in their right mind would spend the money to build a house without making sure the foundation was secure. But people are content to not truly seek out truth to make sure they are building their lives on a secure foundation.
- Instead of the Creator, we choose created things. Parents who have been rejected by their children know a little of the pain that God feels as his creation ignores and rejects Him. And what an unbelievable exchange! It would be like Pinnochio choosing to hang out with the wooden lifeless toy next to him on the workbench instead of delighting in the life and benevolence of his maker, Geppetto.
- Instead of basking in the glory of God, we worship things. It’s a hard truth, but often the light of our phones gets more attention than the glory of God. It’s a terrible exchange – his glory is so wonderful. Worshiping and living for Him is incomparable.
Because of this exchange, Paul says, “God gave them over” to their sinful desires. This is the wrath of God that we read about yesterday. His wrath isn’t to wipe us out; it is that He lets us go where our hearts want to go. We will dig into that more tomorrow.
- What about this great exchange that humanity has made sticks out to you?
- Is there an area of your life where you are making this exchange right now? Talk to God about that.
Prayer
Talk to God in response to today’s reading.
Worship Song
You might use this song today to worship Jesus today:
Bible Reading: Romans 1:21-24a, 25
Read these verses three times slowly.
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. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
Reflection & Questions
This week we are taking a look at what is wrong with the world. We can look at our own hearts to see that we are sinful and that sin is what is wrong with the world! Paul tells us about that: “they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.” Well that’s not right. Can you imagine if you made a little puppy out of clay and someone said that the clay puppy did a good job of creating itself instead of telling you, the creator, that YOU did a good job? Silly, right?
This was happening back when Paul wrote this letter. People were creating images that looked like humans and birds and animals and reptiles and were worshiping those images instead of the God who actually created those things in real life! Today, that might look like someone spending more time on their phone or on video games and ignoring God who gave the people the brains to create all technology.
Back in Paul’s time, he wrote that “God gave them over” to their sinful desires. This is that wrath that we talked about yesterday. His wrath isn’t to wipe us out; it’s that He lets us go where our hearts want to go. We will learn more about that tomorrow.
- Can you think of something that you spend a lot of time doing that is maybe more important in your life than God?
Pray
Ask Jesus to show you anything that you have made more important than Him in your life and then ask Him to help you make Him the most important thing in your life.
Check out more Bible Reading Plans here.
Questions?
Ed Applegate
