Category: Romans

Take a moment to read Romans 12:1-8 before reading the devotional below.

So far, Paul has written a letter that has helped put Jesus into the scope of Jewish history and uphold the importance of God’s special chosen people while also explaining why God would open the door to the Gentiles. He has made a clear argument that we all need saving, no matter who we are, and in God’s mercy he has made that possible through Jesus. How are we to respond to such mercy on God’s part? What does God want now from his special Jewish people, and what does he require of the Gentiles?

God wants one thing: you. Your life, just like Christ’s, is the sacrifice he desires. The law was an earthly system that pointed to the need for salvation. Those sacrificial requirements had to be repeated over and over because they were never good enough. But Jesus gave us a model for what it means to lay down our lives. When we do this, we live as fundamentally different people. Not Jews, not Gentiles, but instead one people united by God’s Spirit. No one is better or worse than anyone else, and we function best when we are working together as a body.

Here’s your freedom for today: you have a place in God’s family. No matter how God made you, no matter what skills or abilities you have, God has a place for you in his family. We all work together, with everyone giving of themselves for something far greater. Devotion and love for our Heavenly Father unites us and supersedes all other identities we may hold. To some that may sound like a creepy cult, but a close family is nothing of the sort. Wouldn’t you want a place to belong where you are free to be yourself? Most of the world is searching for just that, and looking in all the wrong places. God loves you, wants you, and invites you. It’s completely up to you whether you come along.

Take a moment to read Romans 12:9-21 before reading the devotional below.

Yesterday’s passage told us to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God in response to his merciful offer of salvation. Wonder what that looks like in day-to-day life? Paul gives us a list of examples in today’s verses:

1. Love other people from the deepest place in your soul

2. Hate and oppose evil things

3. Delight in honoring others

4. Work hard

5. Rejoice in the hope of salvation

6. Be patient in trouble

7. Pray, pray, pray

8. Help people in need

9. Practice hospitality

10. Bless and pray for those who persecute you

11. Demonstrate empathy

12. Live at peace with everyone

13. Don’t be above anybody else

14. Don’t seek revenge

15. Do everything in a way that shows your honor and integrity

16. Overcome evil by doing good

There you go. That is your daily to-do list for the rest of your life. Imagine if people who claimed to follow Jesus did those 16 things every day. What would the church be like? What would the world be like?

Here’s your freedom for today: God’s will is not a mystery. We often make the Christian life more complicated than it needs to be. We spend loads of time asking God to show us his will and we wait for writing in the sky while ignoring what we has already told us to do. Until you get more directions, use these. They’ll cover most situations anyway. When we stop trying to figure out some complicated “next step” and start living the way God has already showed us, we are freed up to truly live as Jesus did rather than being caught in a trap of inaction. Pick one thing from today’s list and do that one thing well. There is tremendous spiritual power in simple obedience.

Take a moment to read Romans 13:1-7 before reading the devotional below.

Paul has fully transitioned to the application portion of his letter, and he’s continuing to lay out ways that Christians look different than the rest of the world. In light of this main idea that we are to lay down our lives as living sacrifices to God, he explains how followers of Jesus should act to the governing authorities. Keep in mind he is writing to the followers of Jesus in Rome, the center of the Roman empire. These authorities were not often nice to the non-Romans they had conquered. Just as Jesus had taught, Paul reminds these early Christians that the church must be known for peacemaking, not uprising.

In addition to making peace, Paul encourages his readers (including us 2,000 years later) to live in such a way as to keep a clear conscience. If you aren’t sneaking around cutting corners and breaking laws, you have nothing to worry about when the authorities come around. This freedom from fear of getting caught is exactly what life in the Spirit is all about. We don’t need God’s law or human laws to tell us right and wrong — the Spirit of God is always going to lead us in the right direction. So pay your taxes, stay out of trouble, never let anyone have any reason to say anything bad about you.

Here’s your freedom for today: you get to live a different life in the Spirit. Watch the news for about ten minutes and you’ll hear stories of people who are living in fear. They’ve done something wrong and are trying not to get caught. They lie to protect their lies and they think they are invincible. That kind of life is full of stress, pressure, and fear. Nothing is worth having to sleep with one eye open. A follower of Christ can rest peacefully knowing that the Spirit of God has kept them safe from the grip of this snowballing type of sin. If you are experiencing that now because of things in your past, today can be your day to be honest. Start by being honest with yourself, then God, and then one other safe person. Taking those steps might just set you free.

Take a moment to read Romans 13:8-14 before reading the devotional below.

Right living isn’t just between you and God — it impacts our relationships too. We can’t truly follow Jesus if we do not treat others with love and compassion. This includes strangers and our closest family members and everyone in between. No one is exempt from the love we are called to give.

As a counselor, I am interested in the concept of “love your neighbor as yourself.” In many ways, that presumes a healthy self-love, but a lot of people struggle with poor self-esteem. When they do not love themselves, they don’t love their neighbor either (in the biblical sense of the word “love”). Think about it: when you are angry or hurting inside you have less to give to others. You are more likely to lash out or even perhaps allow them to treat you poorly. Verse 10 helps us see that all of this is wrong thinking as it says, “Love does no wrong to others.”

Here’s your freedom for today: love will never hurt you. No matter what you have been told about love and no matter how badly you have treated others, you can start again. You begin by acknowledging that you have no understanding of love. Your thoughts are not true. Love does not hurt. If you hurt others, then you have to start over with your concept of love. If others have hurt you, then they have not loved you no matter what they said. Time is running out in this world, and we don’t have time to waste without love. We need it, right now, in every relationship and between God and ourselves. If your relationships are broken, today is the day to decide to start over. Question your understanding of love and turn to the Bible to learn what love really is. A simple search of the word “love” in the Bible will shed a lot of light on how we can understand that word a whole lot better.

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Romans 14 before reading the devotional below.

Not everyone has the same conscience. According to the Bible, specifically this chapter, that’s okay. There is not one set of religious rules we all must follow in order to earn our way to God. That way of thinking is the exact opposite of the Gospel. Paul has spent a large amount of this letter to the Romans explaining how the law was not intended to save us, but rather to demonstrate our need for salvation. In today’s chapter, we see that some will have convictions for themselves that are different from the convictions of others. Following your own convictions and being respectful of others are the keys to healthy spiritual community.

Why is Paul taking so much time to talk about food? What does it matter what we eat? Does Jesus care? For a group of Jews and Gentiles trying to get along and figure out how to follow Jesus, food was a huge deal. Jews had all kinds of laws about what they could and could not eat. (At our house we often say that Jesus came so that we could eat bacon…). Some Jewish followers of Jesus wanted to maintain their Jewish customs, and that was perfectly fine as long as they were not relying on that to make them right with God. They also did not need to impose those customs onto the Gentiles in their midst.

Here’s your freedom for today: sometimes it’s better just to focus on yourself. You don’t need to compare yourself to someone else or decide what they ought to do. Whether it is what to eat or what to wear or what music to listen to, you should follow the convictions that the Holy Spirit places on your heart. Some will be more conservative than others — and we don’t have to be the ones to judge or compare with others. Paul wants to get across one point in this chapter: be sensitive. Don’t let the convictions of others stress you out or make you think you need to follow more rules, and don’t let your own convictions make you a know-it-all on the best way to be a good Christian. Just follow Jesus and let others do the same. God can work out all the working out that needs to be done.