Romans 1:1

The book of Romans is a basic introduction to the Gospel. It is a step-by-step representation of our basic spiritual state, our fallen nature, our need for a savior. It goes on, though, to present the whole of the Gospel- everything from Christ to how to live day by day. This is how we should approach Romans. And this is how Paul begins:

v. 1. "Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus..."
-In most cases, when Paul says "servant", the term is a shout out to the idea of the "bondservant" in the Jewish system, which we can see in Deuteronomy 15:17. The idea is that when you set a slave free but you've been good to him and he wants to stay, he will tell you that he loves you. You then lean him up against a door and drive an awl (pretty much a long metal spike) through his ear. Forever and wherever he goes, he will be segregated from the other servants and slaves by the hole in his ear. Everyone will know that he has chosen to work for his master.
That's what Paul is saying when he calls himself a "servant". It means he's chosen that life- he's bonded himself to Jesus.
I think that's how I should be. I have to remember what Jesus did for me and how good He's been to me. And then, no matter what, I really can't see any other option than to choose to live for Him in everything I do.
But I also need to think about the intense commitment I'm making. Since I've been doing a lot of thinking about marriage, I have to liken my commitment to Christ to that. When we say we're bondservants of Jesus, we're also saying, "Hey, mark me. Punch a hole in my ear. So that everyone will know I serve you." Later, it talks about being circumcised and what that means. I won't get into it now, but the point is that people who see you should know what you've chosen. I think a lot of Christians like to hide behind their humanity. It's like the default state is human. We feel like we're undercover. Like we know something others don't. And we do know something others don't. But should we really be hiding that? Should we be bolstering our pride with our salvation when really we should be offering it to everyone around. And everyone should know we have a secret.
Okay, imagine it like this:
Say you're a homeless man. You happen to know this really great place to get awesome gourmet food and designer clothes all the time. You go to the place and there's other homeless people there also living off this awesome source of stuff. You guys hang out only at that place and you just kind of acknowledge each other if you pass on the street. But when you do walk around on the street, you put your ratty old plaid suit jacket and your stained slacks and your nearly-destroyed Reeboks back on, you tousle your hair, and make sure that you look like you never found a cool place to begin with. Then you see the other homeless guys that don't know about your place, and inwardly you think, "Gosh, what losers. My life is so much better than theirs."
But is it really? Now, I know most Christians don't do this consciously. They don't think that unsaved people are losers for the most part. In fact, maybe they think that non-Christians are cool.
And then, while everyone around us is working so hard to hide their inner misery, we're working equally hard to hide our inner fulfillment, to look like the rest of them. When really, they should look at us and go, "Hey, check out that guy. He's found a master that is worth serving. Gosh, I wish I had a cool master like that."
Paul proclaims it in the first sentence of almost all his letters. How are we proclaiming it?

I promise in the future, I'll cover more than a fraction of a verse.