Birthdays are special. Our families love to celebrate with us and we enjoy the attention. One of the downsides is that technology seems to have taken the place of snail mail cards and Facebook releases our information whether we want it or not and so we get lots of FB Happy Birthday’s sent our way. That is why the standard birthday cake with family takes a special spot in our hearts. It is put in our memory book.  Think of the book of Romans is like God’s birthday card sent right to our “inbox” sharing his message of love through the words of the gospel.

If we have accepted Christ as our Savior we celebrate a second birthday called our “spiritual birthday.” This is the day the angels sang and our name was etched on the palms of God’s hands. All of heaven celebrated and will be each year from then until we take our last breath and we enter heaven’s gate. The day we accepted the God’s gospel message and took our first breath of the Holy Spirit we exclaimed God’s power for salvation. We were birthed and transformed with a renewed mind. We stepped out of darkness into light, put on the garment of salvation and became willing slaves of Christ Jesus; called and set apart for service. We explain it by using the term born again just as Jesus did with Nicodemus. The scales fell off our eyes and our ears were opened to hear the truth of the gospel message. It was the appointed time God decided to show favor upon us and respond to our cry for healing. [Is 49]

What a wonder the gospel message; God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes. Barclay summed it up this way “The Law lays down what a man must do, the gospel lays down what God has done.”