As I was reading Romans 8 this morning, I remembered a phrase I had handwritten on the side of my sermon notes and mentioned last week about how when we read our bibles we need to be "gospel detectives." Like detectives, We need to be looking for connections between what we are called to do as Christians, and the gospel that is the foundation and power to complete these commands. I gave us a few examples on Sunday.

But it's not just individual passages that show us how critical the gospel is to obedience, whole letters of the New Testament have the gospel as the foundation for commands that follow. I can think of two in particular; Romans and Ephesians. In Romans, the first eleven chapters are filled with gospel.

Here's a choice passage:

"If God is for us who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all how will he also with him graciously give us all things. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies." (Romans 8:31-33)

Then, in Romans 12, the Apostle Paul transitions to commands that flow from this gospel that he has just expounded for 11 chapters. "I appeal to you therefore brothers, present your bodies as a living sacrifice... do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your minds." (Romans 12:1,2)

Ephesians is the same way. For three chapters Paul explains the grace of God and its implications in the gospel, then in 4-6 he applies it to how we should respond in our lives, marriages, parenting, speech etc.

As you read the Word this week seek to be a gospel detective. Be looking for the glorious truth of Jesus' death and resurrection, the implications that flow from it, and the call on our lives as a result.