I Thank My God
Through Jesus
Christ
First, I thank my God through Jesus
Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed throughout the world.
For God, whom I serve with my spirit by announcing the gospel of his Son, is my
witness that without ceasing I remember you always in my prayers, asking that
by God’s will I may somehow at last succeed in coming to you. For I am longing
to see you so that I may share with you some spiritual gift to strengthen you –
or rather so that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both
yours and mine. I want you to know, brothers and sisters,
that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been
prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as I have among the
rest of the Gentiles. I am a debtor both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to
the wise and to the foolish – hence my eagerness to proclaim the gospel to you
also who are in
For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it
is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first
and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through
faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by
faith.”
Paul felt indebted. Christ had
sacrificed Himself to pay for Paul’s sins and set him free from judgment and
death.
The Greeks and the barbarians had not
died for him, nor had the wise or the unwise. But Christ had. The sacrifice of
the Son of God on his behalf was so overwhelming to Paul that he felt he owed
it to everyone to make sure they heard of God’s redeeming love. His sense of
indebtedness to Christ made him a debtor to all who needed the Savior.
We can’t earn God’s gift of love, but
we have an obligation to share it with others who need Him. We can never
sacrifice too much for Him who sacrificed His all for us.
Our Daily
Bread –