Remember that the last section concluded with Paul’s declaration that he is not ashamed of the good news about Jesus’ Lordship over all the earth. He is bold to declare it, even if it’s risky to do so, because contained in this message is the long awaited revelation from God regarding how he will keep his covenant and once again make his moral excellence available to mankind, bringing us into right relationship with himself.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:18–32, ESV)

“For the wrath of God is revealed…” In the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed. What’s the default state of affairs apart from that good news. God’s wrath is revealed against unrighteousness. If we don’t share in his righteousness, we will share in his wrath. There is no avoiding this dilemma.

“So they are without excuse.” No one will ever be able to claim they didn’t know. What God has revealed about himself to every single person just through creation is sufficient to leave us before his judgment without defense.

After making this clear, Paul goes on to describe the true nature of the unrighteousness against which God’s wrath has been revealed. What is the true nature of our problem? What is the question for which the gospel is God’s answer?

1. Our thinking is messed up. “The became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools…because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie…God gave them up to a debased mind…they were filled with all manner of unrighteousness.” Paul goes on to describe the fruit of this messed up thinking, which includes everything from sexual perversion to covetousness to being disobedient to your parents. This list, this “all manner of unrighteousness”, is the symptom, not the disease. The disease has to do with what has taken place in our minds and hearts.

2. The nature of our messed up thinking is idolatry. These phrases make this clear: “…exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things...they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator…they did not see fit to acknowledge God…” What is an idol? An idol is anything or anyone we put in a place in our lives that rightfully belongs to God. An idol is a false source. The long list of sinful behaviors Paul lists is simply an observation of the range of things we can look to besides God as our source. Pleasure. Affirmation from others. Possessions. Self. Control. The list could go on I’m sure, but Paul’s is quite comprehensive.

3. God will let us have what we want. “Therefore God gave them up…” If we want to look elsewhere for that which only God can provide, he will let us. But there will be consequences.

4. This is ultimately about honor. “…For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him…” We have “suppressed the truth”, without excuse we have judged God to be less than he is and looked elsewhere for significance, safety, provision, power. We have looked to self and then oppressed others with our selfishness. By aiming our honor away from God at other things, we have honored the creature rather than the Creator, for these are the only two possible categories. All of humanity is in this condition and we have not only embraced it, but we’ve judged it to be good.

The gospel is God’s answer to this dilemma. How will God, given this awful situation, fulfill his covenant promises regarding redemption and salvation? How will he bring the unrighteous back into a place of right standing with himself? Given that this is the problem, how might we better understand God’s solution? By very definition of the problem, we see that the gospel must be God’s way to reconnect us to himself as our source, to bring us back into a place of honoring him, looking to him, finding in him our all in all. The gospel must provide his way for us to disconnect from self as our source and cut off all the various expressions of selfishness that bring nothing but death into our world.

This is the problem.

Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension are God’s solution. The declaration of Jesus’ Lordship over heaven and earth contains within it God’s provision to bring us home. How? By faith–a faith that trusts Jesus, and follows him through the veil of his flesh, through the cross, putting to death the unrighteousness of a self-sourced life, and emerging on the other side with a brand new life, his life, reconnected to God as our source, with knee and heart and mind bowed to the gospel declaration that Jesus is Lord.

In the previous verse, Paul categorized his audience as being made up of Greeks and Barbarians (to the Greek, anyone who isn’t Greek). In these verses the categorization is different–Jews and non-Jews. In either case, it’s evident that Paul feels a calling to preach this gospel to everyone.

I first remember this passage from a summer camp I attended with my youth group when I was in junior high. Our theme for the week was Not Ashamed. There were many tears at the altar as I, along with many of my friends, confessed to the sin of being secret Christians at school and secret sinners at church. We would no longer be ashamed of our faith. If memory serves, this was the camp where I first felt a calling to vocational ministry (though at the time I had no idea what that would entail). I’m quite sure that the promises I made to God at the altar that week were only occasionally fulfilled once we returned home.

These verses remain precious to me now, even as I’m still growing in boldness, even as I’m still trying to figure out what it means to be in vocational ministry.

For Paul, and for the saints in Rome, the unashamed declaration of the gospel that Jesus is Lord meant social and economic marginalization at best, and, on the pendulum’s darker side, boiling oil or being fed to the lions, for the entertainment of Nero and his exhilarated throngs.

The overall theme of Paul’s letter emerges here. This dangerous good news is worth the risk because of what it contains. God has finally revealed his righteousness. N.T. Wright uniformly defines “righteousness” as “God’s covenant faithfulness”. Read this way–God has finally revealed how he will be faithful to his covenant. The standard Reformed reading would be more like–God is finally made provision for the unrighteous to share in his own moral perfection. I’ve read some really good books arguing over which of these Paul intended. I think he meant both.

How is this gospel to be received? By faith. What will be the result? Those who respond with faith will become “the righteous”, those to whom God has displayed his covenant faithfulness, those who have been enabled to share in God’s own righteousness. Those who live. Life can be found in no other way.

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N.T. Wright gives some very helpful historical background regarding Paul’s letter to the Romans. Unlike some of the churches Paul wrote to, the church in Rome was not founded by Paul. He doesn’t have direct and obvious authority there. This perhaps explains the length of Paul’s greeting and the obvious diplomatic effort in his approach to the letter. Paul’s audience in this letter was rather unique, especially relative to what some of us might think of when we hear the word “church”. Likely, this was a quite small group of believers living in a poorer part of town, meeting in a few small homes for worship, fellowship, and instruction. Though initially a group of Jewish believers in Jesus as Messiah, the gospel (as it’s prone to do) spread beyond those ethnic and cultural boundaries and the church soon became a fellowship of both gentiles and Jewish believers.

A few years prior to Paul’s writing, the Roman emperor had expelled all the Jews from Rome, leaving the remaining Christian community as an exclusively gentile fellowship for a number of years. After several years of non-Jewish influence, the non-Jewish community of believers would have developed an approach to their faith absent some of the distinctly Jewish flavors. Tom Wright goes on to describe:

“…it would have been easy for them to suppose that the new message had, as it were, left the Jewish world behind. God had done a new thing. Israel may have been the place where it all began, but now that had been left behind. All those rules and regulations, the law with its taboos, dietary restrictions, special holy days … all of it was gone. Christianity was now for the Gentile world. So they might have thought.” (Wright, T. 2004. Paul for Everyone: Romans Part 1: Chapters 1-8. Both volumes include glossaries. (8). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.)

When the Jews were once again allowed back into Rome, it is easy to speculate the various questions and even tensions that would have emerged in the freshly integrated community of both Jewish and gentile believers in Jesus. Important questions needed to be answered. Pressing issues needed to be resolved regarding Israel and the Church, grace and the Law, and more besides. Paul isn’t answering every question. He is addressing specific issues. To the degree that we can understand the context and the nature of those issues, we will better understand his answers. As we move forward in the rest of Paul’s letter, it will help us to keep this in mind, as Wright goes on to say:

“It’s important that, all the way through, we hold in our minds a historical picture of the Romans’ church and its questions, rather than imagining that it was a church just like one of ours.” (Wright, T. 2004. Paul for Everyone: Romans Part 1: Chapters 1-8. Both volumes include glossaries. (8). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.)

This is the group of believers Paul longs to visit. He wants to impart something spiritual to them of value. He hopes even to, with their partnership, move beyond Rome and take the gospel to Spain. He doesn’t want alienate any group present within the community, Jew or Gentile, so he makes it clear that his message, calling, and burden, extends past any ethnic, cultural, social, or religious boundaries. He doesn’t want to alienate them with an assumption of apostolic authority that isn’t warranted, so he is careful to communicate that though he is coming with a hope to impart, he is also coming with a humility to receive from them.

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“Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Romans 1:1–7, ESV)

1. Jesus is Lord.

The theme of Christ’s authority is densely packed into this passage. Paul identifies himself as a “servant of [Messiah] Jesus”. I replace “Christ”, in this instance, with its Hebrew counterpart “Messiah” very intentionally. Messiah is a very Hebrew idea and the term “Christ”, in our contemporary usage, easily becomes merely a name or title, losing the deep and powerful connotation and denotation of kingship and kingdom present in “Messiah.”  Paul is careful to point out that Jesus’ earthly lineage goes all the way back to King David. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to David that his descendent would occupy the throne continually. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is proof that He is, in addition to being David’s son, the Son of God. Claims to kingship and to “Son of God” status in Rome were likely to be rather unpopular with Caesar. Paul was not unaware of this, nevertheless he begins his salutation with the strongest of affirmations that Jesus Christ is “our Lord“.

This is the message Paul has been called to proclaim. The expected result? That through this apostleship many from all nations will come into the “obedience of faith” and would “belong” to Christ. The declaration of Jesus’ Lordship is the message of the gospel. No response but obedient faith could be seen as the appropriate response to this message.

2. Jesus is Lord of All.

This gospel, this announcement of Jesus as Lord, though a very Jewish message, extends from and beyond the Jewish people. It is good news for “all the nations.” Paul is writing to both Jew and Gentile in Rome, who together are “loved by God and called to be saints.” The relationship of Jew and Gentile in light of the gospel will be a major theme of Romans. Paul’s greeting establishes from the beginning that this gospel is firmly rooted in Jewish history and scripture, is a continuation of God’s work in and through the Jewish people, and is ultimately the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that through his descendents God would bring blessing to all the nations of the earth.

3. The Gospel is God’s Sovereign Action in the Earth.

History is the unfolding of God’s purpose. Creation was His plan. New Creation is also His plan. Paul always seems very careful to give God the credit and the glory. God “called” Paul to be an apostle. God promised in the scripture that Messiah would come. God raised Jesus from the dead. It is God who loves us and calls us. The gospel is the declaration that God has acted through Christ to bring New Creation to our fallen world. The King has returned. He gets the credit. Why did He do it? Ultimately, “for the sake of his name“. He gets the glory too.

4. This is God’s Story.

Revisiting this passage has brought a new awareness and appreciation for whose story this really is. It’s so easy to see the gospel with me at the center.

I’m a sinner. I’m separated from God and destined for hell. God has made a way for me to be forgiven and go to heaven when I die.

All of this is true, but Paul doesn’t frame things in this way. God is at the center. The gospel is about what God has done for the sake of His own name. I am the beneficiary of His action for His sake. His love for me is an overflow of who He is. Forgiveness, justification, adoption, sanctification, and ultimately glorification–all the ways his lavish grace is expressed toward me are the overflow of what happens when a God who is love acts within History to bring glory to His own name.

God loves me. It brings glory to His name to act within history through Christ to redeem me and make me His own. The Lord of all the earth has become my Lord. What a mighty God.

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Rom 1:7)

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I should admit upfront that I’m nervous about this. Scripture is constantly doing violence to my theology and a serious reading of Romans is sure to leave my currently neat and tidy doctrinal box a bit battered and bruised. But we don’t approach scripture to confirm what we already know. Do we? Theological stretching invites us to broaden not just what we think, but how we think and, more importantly, how we seek. Every new vista in God, however unexpected, informs new worship and new surrender.

I will mostly use the ESV version of the Bible. It’s a word-for-word translation that reads easily and speaks with precision. In addition to study and meditation, my goal will be to listen through Romans via the ESV Hear the Word Audio Bible from Crossway multiple times weekly as the series progresses.

I don’t plan to travel alone. Spiros Zodhiates’ The Complete Word Study Dictionary, New Testament will help me gather helpful insight from the original language. I will also frequently use two commentaries. Douglas Moo’s The Epistle of Romans from the New International Commentary on the New Testament and Tom Wright’s (N.T. Wright) Romans for Everyone will be constant helps. I will reference them going forward as (Zodhiates), (Moo), and (Wright).

I anticipate encountering some controversy. Faith and works, issues of morality, righteousness and justification, sovereignty and volition, the role of the Holy Spirit, Israel and the Church: these themes and more are unavoidable in Romans and I’m not nearly smart enough to sort them all out. But it will be fun to explore what Paul has said. It will be even more fun to embrace the truths sometimes located at the intersection of paradox and meditate on the grandeur of the God who doesn’t fit between our ears.

I’m definitely not trying to start any arguments. If you’re looking for a theological sparring partner, look elsewhere. This is merely a journal of my journey. Your comments are welcome, but anything adversarial should be avoided. Pretty please.

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Click here to learn about my new book Unveiled, The Transforming Power of God’s Presence and Voice.

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“I’ve learned that spiritual disciplines and right doctrine produce wonderful Pharisees but do not heal the broken,” Alan Smith. And that’s only chapter 1. #Unveiled

-       Kelle Branting

What I love about the book so far is how it’s confirming that I do indeed hear God’s voice. It’s so meaningful to hear someone else put into words what I’ve been experiencing in the last 6 months. Thank you so much for this book Alan.

-       Evan Agee

Alan, I just finished Unveiled tonight and wanted to thank you for writing it. I especially loved your thoughts about engaging our imagination during prayer and worship times, I’m finding that it adds a sense of anticipation to my prayer time that has been incredibly sweet. What I loved most about the book were the countless confirmations that I am indeed hearing His voice. Blessings on you and your family brother as you continue to be faithful. I look forward to getting to know you more throughout the course of eternity!

-       Evan Agee

Alan I’m in chapter 2. It’s a fantastic topic and book. Thanks for letting Holy Spirit lead you to write it.

-       Tammy Kling

Just started your book tonight. Wow, and oh my goodness. I can feel His presence while I’m reading and I’m only on the 4th chapter!!! Love it!

-       LeAnne Wadsworth

I need more books, I already gave them all away.
Great job Alan, your book really ministered to me. I never read books more than once, but I’ve finished yours and am looking forward to using it many times over in group studies. I can’t wait to see what God will do!

- Jon Pignatelli

Yeah your book is really good. I am only reading 2 chapters at a time because that’s really all time will allow most times. But really—that’s all you need to read at a time so you can get your heart wrapped around it. Good good stuff.

-       Jonathan Holmes

One of my favorite Alan Smith quotes from Unveiled is on page 219: “Faith is not about my effort to believe, it is about my surrender as a branch to the vine.” Thank you Alan. Your book has helped me understand so much!

-       Ann Fangio

Hi Alan, just finished Chapter 7 “Seated in Heavenly Places” and tears of gratitude could not be withheld while reading page 133 and of course the pages are almost all yellow from highlighting! Thank you for writing this book! I am so using it with clients soon!!!!!

-       Ann Fangio

Love this line from your book Alan: God seems very comfortable with allowing life circumstances to squeeze us uncomfortably (p. 52). BIG SMILE after reading that! I just finished Chapter 3 and almost the whole chapter is highlighted! Can’t wait to finish it!!!

-       Ann Fangio

UNVEILED…this book should be in the hands of everybody!!! Thank You, Jesus for using Alan in my life today to help me better understand the depth of Your love for me!

-       Ruth Menefee

At a ski lodge in Tahoe with my husband reading “Unveiled” by Alan Smith..all I can say is Tahoe is beautiful, but this book is life changing……seriously, get your copy today!!!

-       Kerrie Oles

Really enjoying “Unveiled” by Alan Smith

-       Steve Oglesby

I will spread the word; your book is life changing.

-       Cathy Ethredge

Hey Alan Jon turned me onto a copy going into chapter 2 feeling Blessed already.

-       Frank Vargas

Reading. Love it so far. Inspiring and enlightening. I’m thinking, Christmas presents!

-       Linda Osborne

Just got word from someone we gifted your book with yesterday…said she can’t put it down…hubs left for work this morning with it in hand…thankful for my own copy now that I can highlight and earmark!!!

-       Deborah Vinson

Just finished reading Unveiled today. Great read! It really spoke to a lot of things that I have been seeking God about lately. It also messed with me a little bit…in a good way. Thanks for writing it Alan.

-       Matt Schmuker

p.57 “Our experiences authoritatively shape our expectations and become obstacles obstructing our ability to allow the Bible to defind what is the norm.” I would read faster but it’s incredible statements of truth like this one that are causing me to go slowly through your book. Thank you!

- Cindy Snyder

Just finished ch. 4. Your exegesis/commentary on Eph. 2 is perhaps the best I’ve ever read. It’s really waking me up to new realities (at least my perception of them) about how God wants to reveal himself and speak to me. Good stuff.

-       Edward Jones

Close to finished, but will be going back to chew on the major points. So insightful!! Thank you.

-       Mike Smith

This is most definitely a book you will want to have! It just may be life changing for you!

-       Becky Synan

Twice during Israel’s wilderness wanderings, God provided water from a rock. In both instances, God’s people were encamped in a waterless desert. The first time (Ex 17) was toward the beginning of the forty years of wandering. The second time (Num 20) was toward the end. In both cases, the people, thirsty and fearing death, grumbled against Moses. They questioned Moses’ (and by extension, God’s) motivation for bringing them out of Egypt.

“But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”” (Exodus 17:3, ESV)

“And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.”” (Numbers 20:5, ESV)

At Horeb (the first instance), Moses sought God for direction. God instructed Moses to take his staff and go before the people along with the elders of Israel. God promised to appear before Moses on the rock, where he was to strike the rock with his staff and God would produce water from the rock so the people could drink. Moses named the place Massah (testing) and Meribah (quarreling). The idea of quarreling implies a legal contention. The people came together to make a case against Moses. In verse 7 it says they “tested the LORD by saying, ‘Is the LORD among us or not?”

At Kadesh (the second instance), Moses again sought God for direction. He and Aaron went together to the tent of meeting and fell on their faces before God. The scripture says that God’s glory appeared to them and the LORD gave them very specific instructions. This time, instead of taking Moses’ rod, they were to take the staff that was “before the LORD.” This referred to Aaron’s staff, the one that had miraculously budded after Korah’s rebellion when God had vindicated Aaron as a priest. Moses was to take that staff to the rock, but this time, instead of striking the rock, God instructed Moses to speak to the rock and God would again provide water. God provided water as promised, even though Moses & Aaron didn’t obey God’s instruction completely, but they were not permitted to lead God’s people into the promised land as a result. The LORD characterized their disobedience as unbelief and a failure to uphold God as holy before the people.

As I reflect on these two very similar stories, the context surrounding them captures my attention.

The first instance immediately follows the crossing of the Red Sea and the provision of manna from heaven.

The second story immediately follows Korah’s rebellion, where the ground opened up and swallowed up Korah’s household and God’s fire consumed the 250 men offering incense. When the people were offended at God’s judgment, a plague broke out killing an additional 14,700 people before Aaron was able to intercede and stop the plague. This was followed by God’s vindication of Aaron’s leadership when his rod miraculously budded as a sign confirming God’s unique calling upon his life as a priest.

It boggles my mind how a people could witness both God’s miraculous deliverance and provision, or God’s mighty acts of judgment, and so quickly move again into a place of complaining, unbelief, and dishonor toward God. It’s a good thing we never struggle that way.

Our need for God’s provision is real. There are times where we need water and all we have is a rock in the desert. We serve a God who is well able to provide. Yet still we grumble. We complain. We question his motives or even his presence. How often, I wonder, in the midst of present lack, do we quickly lose sight of our past experience with God. He has delivered us before, but in the moment of present struggle we can easily forget. He has provided for us before, but in the moment that reality easily fades from our consciousness. We have grumbled and complained before and that hasn’t gone well for us either. Thank God that this side of the cross God’s justice and wrath have been fully satisfied in Christ.

Do we sometimes think that if God would just appear, then we would believe? If he would just give us some kind of sign, then our doubts would vanish? If we could just get breakthrough this once, then the next time we need it, surely we wouldn’t grumble and complain again. Or would we?

What if Massah (testing) and Meribah (quarreling) don’t arise from our circumstances at all? What if our circumstances simply expose what was in us all along?

The most amazing thing to me is that even in the midst of our grumbling, God still gives us water from the rock. He meets our needs.

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If so, you’re not the only one. Doctors tell us that a significant portion of illness is brought on by stress.

I run into people everyday who are overwhelmed by schedules, relationships, finances, job demands and any number of other pressures. It fascinates me, however, that I also run into people everyday who are facing those same kinds of circumstantial demands yet somehow able to avoid high levels of stress.

I love the analogy of a roller coaster. Everyone on the ride is experiencing a very similar circumstance, but not everyone has the same experience. Some are overwhelmed and terrified, while others are having the time of their lives. The difference is determined by perspective. If I’m overwhelmed it can very often be because I’m choosing the wrong perspective.

“The roller coaster analogy is useful in explaining why the same stressor can differ so much for each of us. What distinguished the passengers in the back from those up front was the sense of control they had over the event. While neither group had any more or less control their perceptions and expectations were quite different. Many times we create our own stress because of faulty perceptions you can learn to correct.” – The American Institute of Stress http://www.stress.org/topic-definition-stress.htm

We create our own stress. How? By the perceptions we embrace. A helpful study from Weber State University demonstrates that a trait they call “hardiness” is plays a huge role in determining our stress levels within various circumstances. (see: http://faculty.weber.edu/molpin/healthclasses/1110/bookchapters/stresseffectschapter.htm for more on that study.)

Hardiness is defined by three characteristics.

Commitment – I am deeply engaged in my present involvements. We live in a culture where people are largely disengaged from their present reality. We spend our lives wishing we were somewhere else and escaping to some other place. A man on the job wishes he was on the golf course. A man on the golf course is distracted by the unfinished to-do list at work. A stay-at-home mom fantasizes about returning to her career and escaping the demands of screaming babies. A corporate executive fantasizes about being able to stay at home and be with her kids. Our unwillingness to commit our full presence and engagement to our present circumstance sets us up to experience stress, no matter our circumstance. The underlying assumption of this perspective is that we are victims. We are powerless. We have to do this but long to be free to do otherwise. The answer to this is rarely to change your circumstances. The stress isn’t coming from the circumstance. It’s coming from your belief that you aren’t in control. That you HAVE TO be here and can’t be elsewhere. It comes from feeling out of control. Don’t change your circumstance. Commit. Engage. Be fully present. Take dominion where you are. Choose it. It’s what you were made for.

Control – I believe my choices will influence outcomes. Stress increases when my options are removed. I do this to myself simply by believing I have no options, that my capacity to choose is irrelevant. But this belief is itself a choice, one that is actually influencing my present experience of stress a great deal. The reality is that much of my present reality is simply the result of a long series of choices I have made–choices about beliefs, perspectives, and circumstances. I am responsible. My choices have produced the current state of affairs. I am powerful. Of course, things do happen that are beyond my control–bad things, terrible things, even evil things. But I still have a choice regarding my response, my outlook, my attitude, and my ultimate source. No one can take that choice from me. No one. When I choose to believe that I don’t have these options or that choosing them won’t matter I increase my experience of stress.

Challenge – I believe that life will require me to change allowing for growth. What I expect matters. If I’m moving forward into life expecting I won’t have to change or grow, I’m setting myself of for unmet expectations. I’m setting myself up for stress. If my present circumstances are pressing me to adapt and grow, and they always are, then my expectation will determine much regarding how I will experience this challenge. If I am anticipating the challenge, I can lean into the change and growth demanded. I can choose it. I can embrace it. On the other hand, if I am anticipating ease and comfort, I will be taken by surprise when life becomes difficult and I will resist internal change and growth, requiring my circumstances to change instead of me. More stress.

When I choose to inwardly disengage from my present reality, believe that I’m powerless within my present circumstance, and react with surprise when life demands change and growth, then I’m setting myself to be miserable on the roller coaster that is life.

I was made to take dominion not to be a victim.

“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion..’” (Genesis 1:26a, ESV)

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In the modern West, we use the word “nature” to refer to the material universe that operates by cause and effect, independently of spiritual influence. We use the term “supernatural” to describe what is spiritual/ immaterial, from beyond the natural world. If we hold to these two assumptions, then a miracle occurs when the supernatural invades the natural. This way of seeing things can have great influence upon how we read and understand key scriptures.

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10, ESV)

If we read the above verse through the filter of our modern Western assumptions, we might understand “on earth as it is in heaven” as the supernatural triumphing over the natural. But what would happen if we adjusted our filter according to the following passages of scripture?

“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” (Hebrews 11:3, ESV)

“But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:2–3, ESV)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” (John 1:1–3, ESV)

“Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” (1 Corinthians 8:6, ESV)

“For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” (Colossians 1:16, ESV)

From these verses it becomes clear that the material universe originates from and is sustained by the Word. The natural originates from and is sustained by the supernatural. The natural is, in its essence, supernatural. The visible is made from the invisible. When we view Creation through this set of lenses, the distinction between natural and supernatural begins to get pretty obscure. Heaven and Earth are both created realities. They were nothing. Now they are something because God spoke. Heaven and Earth are both supernatural. They are both ordered. They both operate by laws God has set in motion.

It is therefore insufficient to think of a miracle, that moment when Heaven invades Earth, as an expression of the supernatural triumphing over the natural, for the natural is itself supernatural. It is likewise incorrect to think of those aspects of our existence that are not obviously miraculous, our day to day material, cause & effect existence, as being merely natural. The material world itself originates from and is currently being sustained by God’s living and active Word.

I believe it is the modern Western view of things that works to limit many believers from experiencing the miraculous life promised and modeled within scripture. By relegating the spiritual to a reality disconnected from our material existence, and thereby defining the miraculous as a divine interruption of the norm, we position ourselves to only experience the miraculous abnormally. If, instead of seeing spiritual reality as a distant and disconnected reality that must interrupt the way our world normally works in order to produce the miraculous, we were to see the spiritual reality of God’s Word as the source and sustenance of every aspect of every moment of our existence, we would begin to see the supernatural in all things and, at the same time, begin to redefine the miraculous altogether.

Instead of defining a miracle as God working “here” from “out there” in a manner that violates the natural cause and effect processes that are actually His design, we begin to see a miracle as the supernatural work of a supernatural God within His supernatural material creation to accomplish His purpose. Heaven is working within earth to restore God’s original design. Everything is spiritual (heaven & earth). Some things are also material (earth). Some things are doing fine (heaven). Some things are broken and fallen (earth). God is at work redemptively within fallen material Creation to restore and heal; as a result, His will finds full expression on earth like it’s already expressed in heaven.