Romans: WEEKEND RECHARGE!

September 20, 2025

Monday, September 15—Romans 3:21-26
Tuesday, September 16—Romans 3:27-31
Wednesday, September 17—Romans 4:1-8
Thursday, September 18—Romans 4:9-17
Friday, September 19—Romans 4:18-25

THIS WEEK’S DAILY DEVO OVERVIEW: ROMANS 3:21-4:25

Romans 3:21-26

• Paul shifts from humanity’s helplessness to God’s provision of righteousness. This righteousness—God’s own standard—is not achieved by our efforts but is revealed apart from the law (Romans 3:21).
  
  
• Everyone falls short, but all can be justified—declared righteous—freely by God’s grace. This isn’t earned through good behavior but received through faith (Romans 3:22-24).
• Through the cross, Jesus satisfied God’s just wrath (propitiation) and paid the price to set us free (redemption). God remains both just (not ignoring sin) and the justifier (making sinners right) through Christ (Romans 3:25-26).

Romans 3:27-31

• Paul reminds us that salvation is not something we earn—it’s a gift. Boasting is ruled out because we bring nothing to the table. Grace silences pride and leads us to humility and gratitude (Romans 3:27).
  
  
• Paul doubles down: we are justified (declared right before God) by faith—entirely apart from works. This truth applies to everyone, whether Jew or Gentile (Romans 3:28).
  
  
• God is not the God of just one group—He is the God of everyone. Both Jews and Gentiles are justified in the same way: by faith. And rather than nullifying the law, faith fulfills its purpose—showing us our need for Christ (Romans 3:29-31).

Romans 4:1-8

• Paul uses Abraham to illustrate that righteousness before God is achieved through faith, not through good deeds or religious rituals (Romans 4:1-5). Our relationship with God is not earned—it is received as a gift of grace.
  
  
• Abraham's belief in God's promises was "counted" (credited) to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3). This highlights that faith is the means through which God deposits righteousness into our lives, not our ability to obey laws or perform good works.
  
  
• Paul quotes David (Psalm 32) to highlight that God not only forgives our sins but also does not count them against those who are justified by faith (Romans 4:6-8). Our sins are covered, and God will never hold them against us again once we are made righteous in Christ.

Romans 4:9-17

• Before Abraham was circumcised, he was justified by faith (Romans 4:9-10). This shows that salvation is not dependent on religious rituals or signs.
  
  
• Circumcision was a sign and seal of righteousness that Abraham already possessed (Romans 4:11-12).
  
  
• The promise was not fulfilled through the law but through faith (Romans 4:13-17). If salvation depended on the law, then grace would be useless and the promise meaningless.

Romans 4:18-25

• Abraham believed ‘in hope against hope’ when his body was as good as dead (Romans 4:18-19). True faith begins when we stop relying on ourselves and fully trust in God’s power.
  
  
• Although Abraham faced doubts and setbacks, “no unbelief made him waver,” but he “grew strong in his faith” by giving glory to God (Romans 4:20-21). Biblical faith is about being fully convinced of God’s power, not having perfect understanding.
  
  
• Just like Abraham, we are declared righteous not by works but by trusting in the death and resurrection of Jesus (Romans 4:22-25). 

This is a powerful quote about the futility of trying to earn our salvation. This is by Thomas Boston, a Scottish pastor who lived in the late 1600s and early 1700s. 

If you should, from this moment, bid an eternal farewell to this world’s joys, and all the affairs thereof, and busy yourselves with nothing but the salvation of your souls; if you should go into some wilderness, live upon the grass of the field, and be companions to owls; if you should retire to some dark cavern of the earth , and weep there for your sins, until you had wept yourselves blind; if you should confess with your tongue, until it cleave to the roof of your mouth; pray, till your knees grow hard as horns; fast, till your body become like a skeleton, and, after all this, give it to be burnt…Believe it, sirs, if you live and die out of Christ, without being actually united to Him…and without coming under the cover of His atoning blood. Though you should do the utmost that any man can do, in keeping the commands of God, you will never see the face of God in peace.