Romans 1:24-27

"(24) Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. (25) They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator - who is forever praised. Amen. (26) Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. (27) In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and recieved in themselves the due penalty for their perversion."

Okay, so in my last post Paul was talking about how God revealed himself through nature and His Word, but people still turned away from him and worhipped other things. Today Paul continues by saying that God let them pursue their sinful desires. If God has the power to do anything, why does he allow people to pursue their sinful desires? Answer - free will. We are not robots because God did not create us to be robots. We have the power to choose which direction we will go and God will not force us to choose Him. If we choose to pursue the sinful desires, there's nothing God will do to stop us. Important note: If you ask God into your life and you ask him to help you turn away from those sinful desires, then he certainly will do that, but this is a whole different story when compared to what Paul is talking about.

I feel like in this section of Romans Paul is referring to the people of Rome who still worshipped the Olympians. I am totally fascinated with ancient Rome and having read a lot about it I know that there was a lot of sexual impurity back then. Paul, as the mouthpiece of God, is very critical of homosexuality, so if you weren't really sure where God stood on that issue, go back and read verse 26 and 27. But there are other things besides homosexuality that I think that Paul is including or would have included if he was alive today - pornography, sexting, multipe partners, infidelity, etc. Now I can hear my high school students grumbling that sexting and too-sexy clothes is "normal" and that's what they want, but I have yet to read anything in the Bible that says you should do what is "normal" for your age group or culture. God holds us to a higher standard where we may have to go against our desires or what is "normal". I may desire to eat chocolate for every meal, but I don't think God would approve of me treating my body like a chocolate dump instead of a temple. Why should you listen to what Paul is saying? Because at the end of verse 27 he says "[they] recieved in themselves the due penalty for their perversions." I think this is referring to their heart or soul. Their actions were perverted so their hearts and souls became perverted, which Paul calls thier penalty. I don't want my heart and soul to be warped and distorted, otherwise how could I be a good mom, wife, daughter, sister or human being? I hope you'll pray for everyone to avoid these sins and stand strong against what is "normal" and stand up for what is godly.