Who are Pagans

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

WHO ARE PAGANS

Rom 3:9-18

9 What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. 10 As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;   11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."   13 "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips."   14 "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness."   15 "Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know."   18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes."  

NIV

It is clear that we all are under sin. That all mankind from Adam and Eve who disobeyed God regarding eating from that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, are under the burden of sin. There is no question that we are not righteous. The word of God declares we are not righteous. However, it does seem there are some Christians who either think they are righteous, or give the impression of being righteous, even acting “holier than thou”, or at least appearing they are better than others. No, we cannot allow pride to overrule humility and we must admit that we are not righteous, which means we still struggle with sin. Praise God, we are not condemned for our unrighteousness, for because we accepted Jesus as our lord and Savior and we are in Christ and he is in us, we have been declared holy and blameless in the sight of God. Still, is it also possible that we do not understand? If Paul says that there is not who understands, no one who seeks God, could that be us or is he speaking about the pagan world we live in? Paul will eventually bring all this to the conclusion that righteousness comes from God, who is Jesus, and faith in him bring us from this bleak brink of destruction to life under the grace of God. However, does any of this description by Paul of the pagan world’s ways linger deep within us? Can we say that we seek God with our whole being all the time? Certainly, we would not think that we have turned away for we have turned from our live of evil and turned to God for the forgiveness of our sins and so our heart is no longer bent toward evil, but bent toward God. However, we still struggle with our humanness, our frailty, our weakness to say no to some temptations, perhaps not fully given in to them all the time, but on occasion, we fall prey a few of those things that tempt us. They may not be, what might be considered hardcore sins, such as murder, stealing, adultery, and the such, but pride, arrogance, gossip, self-righteousness, boastfulness and the such are still yielding to temptation and is sin. No, seeking after God is not an act of righteousness, or gives us any claim of goodness, for as sinners our only hope is in God and his grace. We all have fallen short of the glory of God, which Paul is going to tell us later in this letter. However, when we look at this full description of the pagan world that has indeed turned its backs on God and has no fear of God in them whatsoever, we know this does not apply to us, for we both seek to know God more, and at the same time fear him, After all He is God and we are human, He can do all things, and we can do nothing apart from him. Yet there is still a difference between us and these pagans.