Romans 2:5 Devotion by Stephen Taylor

Romans 2:5

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when His righteous judgment will be revealed.

 

Psalm 31:19 - How abundant are the good things that you have stored up for those who fear you, that you bestow in the sight of all, on those who take refuge in you.

 

Something is being stored up for you. Is it you storing up wrath for yourself or your Heavenly Father storing up His good things for you? I see some similarities here and one major difference. The similarities being that these are both written by men of God through the power and wisdom of the Holy Spirit and that they both point to the end of our lives and what awaits us. But the major difference is who is doing the storing up!

 

In the verse from Romans, it says that people are the ones storing up wrath for themselves, but in the verse in Psalms, it says that God is storing up good things for us! This tells me that the best I can store up or expect for myself outside of Christ is wrath, that I can do nothing outside of Christ to save my soul and incur blessings instead of curses! How freeing that is! I’m not under the gun to constantly perform perfectly in order to receive a blessing or to avoid wrath! This isn’t a performance-driven relationship but a relationship bought by the driven nails into Christ’s hands and feet!

 

It says things in the Bible like “fear the Lord, obey Him, follow Him,” but not one time does it say you have to earn His love. Every command that we are given in the Bible can be fulfilled and accomplished through the Holy Spirit. God did not set us up to fail but rather stacked the deck in our favor! If you have to earn a gift, then it no longer becomes a gift but turns into a wage, and what does the Bible say about the wages we can earn?

 

Romans 6:23 - For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

 

Thank You, Jesus, for illuminating our darkness and setting the captives free! For turning those who were once enemies into redeemed children of God, a gift so precious it could only be purchased with the priceless and unmatched blood of Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God!

 

God bless! I love you all! Glory, Honor, and Praise now and forever to Papa God, Jesus Christ the King of kings and Lord of lords, and the Holy Spirit who equips us daily for the path ahead!