Monday's Devo - Let all that is in us Praise the Lord!

Read Ro. 1: 16-32
This is such a rich book I only have time to pick out the verses that stand out to me. So, in verse 17 says that God's righteousness, his holiness is reveled from faith to faith. When I got saved I did it by faith. Now that I am saved everything I believe and do is by faith. That is how we live from faith to faith. God's wrath is against sin and those who distort the truth. The next few verses (19-20) completely dispels atheism. It says that the knowledge of God is shining in every person because God has shown them himself through nature so they will not have any excuse when they stand before him one day. The invisible things like love, faith, salvation, kindness, etc. are clearly seen through the things he made...even the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So how do they see love through the things he made? Every time they see a mother holding her infant and kissing it; every time they see a dog wagging its tail at its master. Faith is seen when a father teaches his son to swim and lets go of him. Salvation is seen the grass that dies each year but comes back to life again each year. The human body is a great picture of God. Ps 18 says the heavens declare God's glory, in fact, everything that he made gives him glory. I think that is why the Indians were so wise, because they studied nature.
So how is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit showed to us. Our earthly father is suppose to be the picture of the Father, but what about the Sun that rules the day and is bigger and brighter than anything we will ever be able to make. The Son is a picture of an earthly son, but can also be a dog - man's best friend. The Holy Spirit is like the wind, felt but only seen in the way it effects things it blows on. There are endless pictures of them everywhere you look.
The problem was that they saw God but they chose not to give him the glory for all this around us. Because they were so unthankful and vain their hearts were deceived into thinking they had something to do with it and they made images of God to be humans or animals and they worshiped them. When God saw the evil of their hearts he gave them over to sin which is perversion to God so all their ways became perverted. We have a list of all the things that sin is and the sad thing is that they knew God would judge them and still had pleasure in doing these things. Sin is fun for a season but reaps death.
Looking at the list of characteristics of unrighteousness let's turn them around and see what the righteous should look like: faithful in marriage, perform acts of love, givers, good, full of good will, life-givers, peace makers, truthful, of good reputation, coverers of sin, kind, lovers of God, gracious, humble, encouragers, inventors of good things, obedient to parents, understanding, unifiers , pure in heart, promise-keepers, merciful.
Lord, we choose that list instead. Grow us up into look like that.