Choosing Redemption: not letting missteps overtake you

​I was in sixth grade, an awkward stage of life at best. Scurrying down the steps after a shower, wearing a towel, my foot slipped and my legs flew out from under me. It was all downhill from there. I bounced, tumbled, down the last seven steps, landing in a heap at the bottom.  Ouch.

As mortifying as this story is (I still cringe about it today), it’s a soft shadow of a more common and painful downhill fall in this world—one that invites the awful wrath of God. I’ve broken Romans 1:18-32 into eight steps, each describing a further progression of a downwards spiral experienced by the Gentiles in the time of Paul’s writing.

As you’re reading, I want you to keep Psalm 103:8 in mind: “The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.” This downwards spiral didn’t happen overnight; God’s righteous anger was not roused quickly. It was a process in which mankind kept choosing to sink deeper down.  Even so, at each step, God would have delighted in taking them back into his love and favor. This struggle is anything but hopeless! God’s steady love is always ready to recapture the hearts of his children, so long as we are willing to accept it. Now, let’s look into what can happen when we aren’t.

1. God revealed through creation.
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. {Romans 1:18-20}

Although these verses are an introduction to the accusation against the Gentiles, it is here that we learn the beginning of God’s anger towards humankind. Through creation, God has revealed his eternal power and divine nature to everyone in the world. There are countless wonders that display this. Sunsets saturated in hundreds of colors, innumerable stars splayed across a night sky, the serene yet altogether inscrutable ocean. Or consider smaller things. The complexity and intricacy of a single cell. How a cut heals. Snowflakes. Laughter. To see God’s qualities revealed in creation and not run to Him with an awe-filled heart is the beginning of a serious issue.

2. Knowledge without love.
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. {Romans 1:21}

These people knew God. The problem is, they didn’t translate that knowledge into worship or relationship. They remained in the potential-filled gray space between knowing and loving. Because of this, their thinking faltered to a state of futility, pointlessness. Their hearts, the sensitivity to the revealed beauty of God, became darkened.

3. Conscious idolatry.
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. {Romans 1:22-23}

This is where the situation moves from seemingly innocent to obviously disobedient. These people give up on the idea of God, and decide to seek glory and meaning in idols. We do this as well. Many things of this world can seem more appealing and fulfilling than God, and we struggle with placing other relationships, concepts, and possessions on His throne.

4. Sinful desires are given freedom. 
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. {Romans 1:24}

If you chase after sin long and hard enough, God will let you have your way. He won’t force you to love him, he won’t force you to be pure. In this verse, God “gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts.” This is a truly terrifying concept. It’s like he’s letting go and permitting us to run with our desires as far as we please. Just how far we will run, cheered on by a satan who abhors our souls, is a horrifying consideration.

This quote from CS Lewis sheds light on the concept of God giving people over to their sins. “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in hell chose it.” This is not a matter of God throwing sin and desire at someone, then laughing as he leaves them to fend for themselves. This is a matter of humankind rejecting God and chasing their own sinful desires, and God letting them have free will. It’s a matter of him letting us choose how we want to live.

5. Creation is worshipped, God is forgotten.
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. {Romans 1:25}

In this step, the very creation that was meant to draw us near to God becomes a replacement for him. Feeling the effect of God letting go, we run full speed into even more blatant lies and idolatry.

6. Shameful lust takes over.
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. {Romans 1:26-27}

God also gives them over to shameful lusts. His design for love and marriage is distorted in sorrowful ways, and he punishes them for this individually. We can see that these people keep pulling farther away from God, and he responds by letting them sink deeper into sin.

7. Minds become depraved.
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. {Romans 1:28}

The people have very blatantly denied God at this point. The bud of knowledge has been forgotten completely, and he withdraws himself from their thoughts. Their minds are given over to corruption.

8. The full force of sin.
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. {Romans 1:29-32}

Here is the painful, saddening culmination of the peoples’ sin and God’s allowance of it. These people have gone downhill fast and thoroughly, and now they have hit absolute rock bottom.

Let this story leave an echoing impact on you. A mess of wildly unrestrained sin can bud from a seemingly simple beginning of not loving God properly. When we give into each progressing step down the spiral, we will certainly reach the bottom. However, if we recognize what’s going on and cry out to God, he will gladly save us and restore what has been lost.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. {Psalm 40:2}
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Even from the most desolate abyss, God’s arm saves. Lean into his amazing mercy today, and thank him for his power to deliver. Keep your heart open and honest, and take the first step back up: loving God fully. 

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*All scripture references are taken from the NIV Bible, unless otherwise noted. 
 

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