{"id":1325,"date":"2009-10-28T21:21:42","date_gmt":"2009-10-29T03:21:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1325"},"modified":"2009-10-28T21:21:42","modified_gmt":"2009-10-29T03:21:42","slug":"romans-311-i-dont-understand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/romans-311-i-dont-understand\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 3:11 – I Don’t Understand"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Romans 3:11<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

We do not seek out God; He draws us to Him.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The word translated \u201cunderstands<\/span>\u201d is the Greek word suni\u0113mi<\/span><\/em>, which is made up of sun<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201ctogether\u201d and hi\u0113mi<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto send\u201d or \u201cto put.\u201d So literally this means \u201cto send together\u201d or \u201cto put together.\u201d It refers to someone \u201cputting it all together\u201d or \u201cunderstanding.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSeeks<\/span>\u201d is from the verb exz\u0113te\u014d<\/span><\/em>. This is made up of ek<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cout\u201d and z\u0113te\u014d<\/span><\/em>, which means \u201cto seek\u201d or \u201cto pursue.\u201d Hence, exz\u0113te\u014d<\/span><\/em> means \u201cto seek out\u201d or \u201cto search diligently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the previous verse Paul declared the first of his great doctrinal statements of the book of Romans. This is the first statement of what some have come to call \u201cThe Romans Road.\u201d The first step in the Romans Road is, \u201cThere is none righteous, no not one.\u201d You will recall that this is a quote from the book of Psalms. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The fool has said in his heart, “<\/span>There is<\/span><\/em> no God.” They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity;<\/span> there is<\/span><\/em> none who does good. God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there are<\/span> any<\/span><\/em> who understand, who seek God. Every one of them has turned aside; they have together become corrupt;<\/span> there is<\/span><\/em> none who does good, no, not one.<\/span> (Psalms 53:1-3<\/span><\/strong>)<\/p>\n

What Paul declared in the previous verse is that there is no one who is righteous in and of himself, or herself. There is no one in the human race (save for Christ Himself) who can stand in the presence of God Almighty and claim that he or she is righteous enough to deserve heaven.<\/span><\/p>\n

In today\u2019s verse Paul continues with his quotation, selecting a portion of Psalms 53:2<\/span><\/strong>. Not only is no one righteous, none of us understands what God wants from us. And today\u2019s verse also tells us that none of us, left to ourselves, seeks after God. In fact, were it not for the drawing together influence of the Spirit of God, none of us would be able to come to God. We don\u2019t seek Him; He draws us to Himself.<\/span><\/p>\n

The bottom line is that none of us deserves heaven or salvation. No, not one! In order for us to be saved we must first realize that we are not worthy of salvation. We don\u2019t deserve it, and there is no reason why God should grant it to us apart from His grace and His grace alone!<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have never recognized your unworthiness for God\u2019s free gift of salvation, now is the time to humble yourself before the mighty hand of God, confess your utter sinfulness, beg for His mercy, and accept His blessed gift of salvation through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on the cross.<\/span><\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

If you have already accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as the payment for your sins, then you are righteous in His eyes. But you need to realize that without the illumination of the Holy Spirit you wouldn\u2019t even understand what God wants from you. And, you need to recognize that you were drawn to Him; you didn\u2019t come by your own effort. <\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you Lord, for drawing me to Yourself, for allowing me to understand Your message, and for saving my soul!<\/span><\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2009 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 3:11 There is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God. Truth to Learn We do not seek out God; He draws us to Him. Behind the Words The word translated \u201cunderstands\u201d is the Greek word suni\u0113mi, which is made up of sun, meaning \u201ctogether\u201d and hi\u0113mi, meaning \u201cto send\u201d or \u201cto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[564,565,566,567],"class_list":["post-1325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-no-one-seeks","tag-no-one-understands","tag-seeks","tag-understands"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-ln","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}