Romans 1:18-32

So continues Romans. It takes me a while to get each post up and at times it makes me feel discouraged/behind...BUT I have found that God has used my "behindness" to teach me more that i can apply to earlier chapters...AND later chapters that we are in right now can relate back to the beginning chapters. So here goes the rest of Romans 1. It is a lot... In fact....ALL of Romans is a lot but it is so eye opening if you can stick in there and TRY to wrap your mind around it. YES...it takes more effort than other books but it is SO worth it.
So these next few verses are heavy words. It is thought that Paul is addressing/talking about non christians because of his heavy wording such as "they supress the truth with their wickedness" and "their hearts were darkened". I am not really sure of who he is talking to, but it is safe to say that that it is a detail that could make us miss the message of what he is trying to say in the end if we let ourselves obsess over it. (just keep that in mind as you read, because christian or non christian, the message still eventually leads to the fact that there is hope.) 
¹⁸ The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
It is interesting to note that it says that Gods wrath is being revealed. As if he has hidden it or kept it under restraint, giving people multiple opportunities to receive his grace. So at a certain point he just says fine, you are gonna have to deal with my wrath, which COMES from HEAVEN! And then he goes on in the next few verses to explain how they purposely rejected God although they had knowledge of him. Therefore...God's wrath was inevitable. 

 ²¹ 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. ²² Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

 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 about God for a lie, and worshiped 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 sexual 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 shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

 ²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. ³² Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Well....that paragraph is slightly shocking at first glace. Gods wrath was simply to give them over to what they wanted. He gave them over to the sinful desires of their hearts and their shameful lusts and over to a depraved mind. It is interesting that each of these things listed kind of deals with different parts of a persons being. After he talks about giving them over to sinful desires of their hearts he lists examples such as sexual impurity and idolatry. Both of these things refer to physical or materialisic struggles/sins. When talking about giving them over to shameful lusts he goes on to give the example of homosexuality. Although this sin is slightly physical, it is more of a problem of identity. It is very much an inward battle as much as an outward battle. Last he gave them over to a depraved mind. This addresses the psychological side of things. God gave them over to their mental sins/struggles. 
What is interesting to me was how it talks about how God gave them over to their sins, meaning that living in their sins was the curse or consequence for rejecting God and his truth. This means that homosexuality (although yes a sin) is a curse or consequence of sin as well. It IN ITSELF is PUNISHMENT. Homosexuality was God's judgment on them. It defiles the picture that marriage between a man and a woman give of the relation ship of Christ (the bridegroom) and the church (the bride). What is often interesting also is that in a homosexual relationship, there is a person that "plays the male or more masculine role" and the other "plays the female or more feminine role", although they are both the same sex. This is not always the case but sometimes it is and it is proof that even in a homosexual relationship people can not get away from the fact that a marriage needs a male figure and a female figure because that is how God created and intended it. 
What is scary is that i went through the list of sins that God gave to describe the people who he had turned over to their sin, and some of the sins I am guilty of OFTEN!!
1) Envy: discontent, resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities or luck
2) Murder
3) Strife: angry or bitter disagreement over fundamental issues, vigorous or bitter conflict
4) Deceit: the act of deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth
5) Malice: the intention or DESIRE to do evil, the desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to another
6) Gossips
7) Slander: the crime of making a false spoken statement damaging a person’s reputation
8)  God haters
9) Insolent: showing a rude or arrogant lack of respect
10) Arrogant: having or revealing an exaggerated sense of ones own importance or abilities
11) Boastful
12) Invent ways of doing evil- note: he does not say they invent new sins, they just invent different ways to commit sin
13) Disobey parent
14) Senseless: def 1: incapable of sensation. Def 2: no common sense
15) Faithless
16) Heartless: complete lack of feeling or consideration
17) ruthless: having no pity of compassion for others


I am guilty of some of these! self check! Are any of these sins becoming a lifestyle??  
Stay tuned....This leads right into the next chapter about judging other people.