Good afternoon, Drawing Near to God community! I’m so grateful that many of you are joining me on this journey through Romans, either at our live Teaching & Worship Experience, by streaming or here on the blog. This week we continued our journey with Romans 4, looking at Justification by Faith.
Beginning with Romans 1:17, Paul describes a righteousness by faith and not by works and now in this week’s chapter, we see in verse 4:5: “However to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness.” Faith in Jesus Christ is what justifies, or gives us right standing before God. Paul uses Abraham’s faith as an example of being made righteous or having righteousness credited to him because of his unswerving faith.
Let’s unpack this a little bit with some points that Paul makes concerning justification by faith:
- Paul set the record straight that first Abraham was made righteous because of his faith and then he took action by faith.
- Righteousness by faith applies to both the Jews and the Gentiles
- Promise received by faith
- He was fully persuaded having unwavering faith.
In this lesson, we also looked at the concept of faith in action. Here are three characteristics of faith in action: 
- Press through unbelief and doubt
- Radical trust
- Call forth things dead to life
We see that if we’re going to demonstrate our faith in action, we must have radical trust. That’s some food for thought! Here are some components of radical trust:
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- Knowing the character of God
- Trusting God
- Being fully persuaded that God has the power to fulfill His promises and do what is best for us
- Letting go of control
I encourage you to join me in making space for God each day, whether that’s through a daily devotional, five minutes of quiet time or digging into God’s Word with this Romans study. When we make space for Him, we get to know His character, trust Him and His promises, and let go of our own control. It’s a beautiful process but first, we must make the space.
