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We long for peace that both surrounds and is within us. But our past and world’s problems feel like scales that can’t be balanced out. Easter reminds us that because of the cross we can experience peace in this world from the One who has overcome it.

It’s a question we’ve all asked at one point in our life, but many times it’s one that we return to again and again: What does God want from me? Romans reminds us that there is one essential thing God is looking for—trust.

In fearing rejection, we ask, “Does God accept me?” Our cultural default is to say, “God accepts everyone.” But that’s not true…God accepts those who believe Him. We are made acceptable to God through faith, not our obedience or good deeds.

The death of Jesus is both the most polarizing and uniting moment in human history. But the question remains, why did Jesus have to die? Romans unpacks both the power and necessity of Jesus’ death, and how the way Jesus died informs the way we live.

Sometimes we live burdened by guilt, feeling condemned by things from our past. Living wracked by guilt is something that we can experience freedom from. We can choose guilt or, through Jesus and what He did on the cross for us, we can choose grace.

How many people assume they’re good with God because they grew up in a Christian home or go to church each week? In Romans 2, Paul explains that it’s not religious traditions that matter, but a true transformation of the heart.

God has invited us to live fully aware of our sinfulness, and at the same time fully aware of God’s grace. To live with both realities protects us from self-righteousness and allows us to live out the true way of Jesus.

God designed us to do life in a certain way, but He gives the decision whether or not to do so to us. When we choose our desires and abandon God and His design, we miss out on the fullness of life God has for us.

God gave us His creation so we could know Him. Yet, instead of worshiping the Creator, Paul writes in Romans that people worshiped “idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.” How do we do this today? And how can we stop?