Romans 12-15

N Romans12-15,Paul is summing up what the lives of true followers of Christ should “look like/act like/think like”!Paul knows that the life seeking to be true to this calling is going to be challenged from all angles,& with all sorts of things meant to wear us down and discourage us....many of these will be totally unfair and unjust.During these times of unfairness & unjust circumstances n our lives,Paul calls us to think of our witness(our Godly Purpose)to the lives of those around us,before thinking of ourselves-(Romans15:1,”We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak(those that lack the encouragement&endurance of the Scriptures in their life-see below reference to Romans15:4),and not to please ourselves.Let each of us please his neighbor for his good,to build him up.”These verses call us to have an Eternal Perspective for how we live our lives,& to not get caught up n how unfairness and lack of true justice impacts our temporal existence.Especially when defending ourselves for selfish reasons will negatively affect our witness for Christ n the lives of those around us.Paul reminds us that Jesus endured such for our sake,”For Christ did not please himself,but as it is written,’The reproaches of those who reproach you fell on me’”.This last statement echoes what David experiences as he is living with a personal zeal for The Lord(Psalm69:9),and it is what Jesus ULTIMATELY SUFFERED on the Cross when He took upon Himself all sin ever committed...on our behalf!This brings Paul to tell us what the PURPOSE is for ALL SCRIPTURE(Romans15:4,”For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us,so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope”.During Paul’s time they had the Old Testament that they needed to study and meditate on(in Joshua1:8-9 The Lord says,”This Book of The Law shall not depart form your mouth,but you shall meditate on it day and night,so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it...Be strong and courageous.Do not be frightened,and do not be dismayed,for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”),we now have the Old Testament,AND the New Testament.The Old Testament gives us the context and the foundation for having REVERENCE for how God The Father reveals Himself in the New Testament through God The Son,and how God The Spirit has been given to us to teach;guide;strengthen;encourage us real-time.As seekers/followers of Christ,we must have the Scriptures as a consistent/persistent part of our everyday life through study and meditation of them.The devil knows this...he knows that we will become discouraged and wear down when we are not making God’s Word a regular part of our day.So, The devil will throw all sorts of things at us too bombard our time in God’s Word.This is why God told Joshua to “be strong and courageous”,knowing the first place of attack for the devil will be God’s source of encouragement and endurance for us->The Scriptures!Dear Lord Jesus,may Your Spirit that lives in me remind me of the significance The Scriptures have for my life...and my need for the encouragement and endurance that is only found in Your Word.Dear Holy Spirit,help me to have my heart/mind/spirit receptive to what You desire to show me and teach me, in Your Word....every moment of every day!

Romans 12

After several chapters of Romans telling about the Holiness&Righteousness of God,HIS Sovereignty....,& how God PERSONALLY enables us to be cleansed from all unrighteousness and be welcomed into a personal relationship with HIM...,n Romans12:1-2,Paul tells us how we protect and nurture a living relationship with GOD->”Therfore, I urge you,brothers,in view of God’s mercy,to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,holy and pleasing to God,this is your spiritual act of worship.Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is,his good,pleasing,and perfect will.”Paul is telling us that there is a battle for our bodies and our minds,raging to veer us away from a real and vibrant relationship with Almighty God.A relationship that is near the Heart of God...,near enough to know His Heart/His good,pleasing,and perfect will!If we do not take Paul’s advice,we will not know God’s Heart,& become confused...ultimately becoming fools about life,it’s meaning&purposes(Proverbs1:7 says,”The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge(an awesome Respect for God and His Word is the beginning of the pursuit of TRUTH about all things),but fools despise wisdom and discipline”.).The first thing Paul urges us to is the discipline of our bodies->applying what God says are the important disciplines for a healthy overall life(physically;emotionally;cerebrally;spiritually) as He plainly lays out for us throughout His Word and the life of Christ.This is where the second part comes into play!For without this second part,there is no way that we will be victorious in the first aspect of the battle for us to have a personal relationship with The Lord!Paul says that we must recognize that there is a battle for ABSOLUTE TRUTH,in what we think;the patterns of how we reason;what we allow into our imaginations,etc.Paul says we must be deliberate in how we battle this front,&be aggressive in transforming our minds away from things that are NOT TRUE by seeking to learn and know TRUTH in and about all things!As Proverbs1 above teaches->an awesome Respect/Reverence for God and His Word is the beginning of the pursuit of TRUTH about all things!If we do not accept this as TRUE,we become fools that despise wisdom.AND then,even if we do accept this as TRUE and do not assimilate God’s TRUTHS into our lives by applying what we accept/believe as TRUE,then we also become fools that despise wisdom!Paul is saying that even if we are diligent in our study of the Bible,and we learn all the details of the Bible that enable us to ACE a “Bible Test”,& yet do not seek to know the life changing impact of God’s Word in our lives/hearts...then we also choose a path of becoming fools that despise wisdom.We come back to the equation of Wisdom-> Knowledge + Application = Wisdom! Which reveals that, Knowledge - Application = FOOL; AND, Application - Knowledge = FOOL!A way that Satan and his minions have proven successful in still making us fools,even when we apply the first equation in our life,is by contaminating TRUE KNOWLEDGE,with anything that is UNtrue.Paul knew that our knowledge will be contaminated,& that the enemy will continue his efforts to contaminate TRUTH w lies.This is why Paul says,”but be transformed by the RENEWING(continual process)of your mind”,referring to our need to regularly have our minds challenged by seeking to know God’s Word&His Ways....,then back to APPLYING what we learn into our lives-weaving God’s Word&Ways into the fabric of our lives.Dear Lord,I am so guilty of fouling up the equation for True Wisdom...,by either letting lies slip into my thinking,or by skipping over the life changing impact You intend for Your TRUTHS to have for me.Forgive me... Help me to know the Presence of Your Spirit that desires to inspire and encourage me to have the TRUTHS of Romans12:1-2 bless and change my life for Your Loving Purposes in and through my life.

Romans 8:26-28

It has been said that “prayer is the converse of the soul with God”.This means that God intends Prayer to be so much more than I usually “make of it”!I have a list of things that I “rattle off” when I pray “TO” God,and I will regularly have things throughout the day that I am compelled to “rattle off”/pray “TO” God about.I am certain that God hears these “rattling offs”/prayers of mine!BUT,I am also certain that HE has given me so much more in HIS GIFT of Prayer...so much more that I usually miss! Romans8:26-28 says,”Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.For we do not know what to pray for as we ought,but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit,because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.And we know that for those who love God,all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”When I do nothing but “rattle off” before God,I am for certain missing the first important part of what God intends prayer to be(The Spirit helps us....for we do not what to pray as we ought)!When I limit my prayers to “rattling off”,I miss this HELP from The Spirit of God...HELP to know more about what else may be part of the CONVERSATION that God would like to have with me relative to my “rattlings”,let alone where HE would like to take the CONVERSATION to,from these starting points.And I also miss the AWESOME God intended opportunity to maybe become aware of the “groanings too deep for words”...the Spirit’s help in distilling my true heart concerns and desires.This includes the discernment God wants me to have so that I am not led astray by desires that are not good for me;nor led into despair over concerns He does not intend to for me to have.And the concerns He does reveal to me as important,The Spirit wants to encourage me with absolute TRUST in GOD’s Sovereignty that says,”And we know that for those who love God,all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose”,which includes the awesome promise that HE has a PURPOSE for my life!This is the part of the conversation where I am changed by being in The Presence of God/Conversing WITH God.When we take the time to turn prayer into what God created it to be,our hearts are changed and our lives become tuned to The Heart of God.We have confidence in His Will over our own,because in conversation with God we have The Spirit’s HELP in knowing far more about what is TRUE,and what is BEST,and what is full of Eternal Purpose for our lives.Dear Lord,I usually “pray to” You instead of taking the time and making the effort to converse with You.I totally forget about Your purpose and Your definition for Prayer.Forgive me!May Your Spirit make me aware of Your desire for my personal times with You,& what You gave me the Gift of Prayer to be.Help me to unpack all the blessings You have intended Prayer to be for my life!

Romans 8:1-17

We who have trusted Christ & received the Grace&Mercy His Gospel alone provides,have been set free from the Chains that once claimed us as prisoners of sin&death,as told in Romans 6:12-14.Those parts of us that were tarnished & decaying because of the Chains have been put to death on the Cross with Jesus.But when when we allow ourselves to succumb to the passions associated with these things,we are in essence picking up things that are dead and full of potential disease that can make our hearts/minds/spirits sick & unhealthy/unholy.When we do this we loose a vigor for The Life that Christ gives us when we take His Great Exchange -> our Chains to Sin&Death EXCHANGED for His Life of Freedom from those Chains & the DEAD STUFF tethered to those Chains.And instead of living by the “life support” of The Spirit of Christ,we become fooled & weakened by pulling the DEAD STUFF back into our lives & living according to the flesh.It is like pulling dead flesh back over our beings....dark & nasty stuff!This is what Romans8:1-17 encourages us about when describing the contrast of living according to the flesh, and living according to the Spirit.When we accept the Great Exchange offered by Christ,He gives us His Spirit to guide us and to protect us from the ways of the flesh;the ways of sin and death.But it is our choice still,whether we will choose to live according to His Spirit....or succumb to the stench of the dying flesh that He freed us from & live according to the flesh(Romans8:6,”For to set the mind on the flesh is death,but to set the mind on the Spirit is life & peace.”).Even though I have given my life to Christ,I have a choice to make many times throughout my days.And I do not always make the RIGHT choice.Thank You Jesus for the Gift of Your Spirit that is always beckoning me to know and follow Your Heart for my own good.Help me to be increasingly aware of Your Spirit,and may I live according to Your Spirit & not by the flesh today.Please make me aware of the dangers of turning back to the flesh...whenever I am tempted to do so.

Romans 6:12-14

When we turn to Christ and receive HIS Gift of Mercy & Grace,there is a great exchange that happens n our life.Jesus takes all of our sin away,including our heart terminally infected by sin and sin’s entangling web of deceit...and HE takes these things to death by HIS sufferings and sacrifices on the Cross,condemning these things to HELL forever(which is where they intended to drag me forever).The CLAIM these things have on our hearts/spirits/minds/lives are NULLIFIED,& the CHAINS that tethered these things to our hearts/spirits/minds/lives are broken.WE ARE FREED from these things.But,they can still taunt us from the pit of Hell,as well as from their influences in the world around us.We are sorta like addicts that have been freed from the grip of whatever we were once addicted to,but still have bits of our hearts/spirits/minds/lives that can be tempted away from our New FREEDOMS in Christ.These are the “passions” that Romans6:12-14 addresses(Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its passions,and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.).When we trust Christ to save us from our sins,and to provide for our Eternal Security,these “passions” can still cause problems in my life-causing me to succumb to their ways of “brief/temporary gratification” that lead to destroying something in my life(the RIGHT relationships God intends for me to have;my peace;my joy;my confidence in Christ;the right kind of love for others;the role God intended my life to have in the life of others;etc.).Even though the CHAINS these things previously had on my life have been broken, that would’ve drug me to Hell,I can still succumb to their taunting.But these verses n Romans encourage us to not only be aware of these “tauntings”,but to be deliberate in the ways we “aggressively” defeat them(but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.)by reminding ourselves of what Jesus has freed us from,and then turning away from the tauntings coming from sinful urges & desires,and claim our identity in Christ as being ALIVE from the dead...the “dead influences” that the tauntings continue to scream for us to return to.Galatians5:1 says it this way-“For freedom Christ has set us free;stand firm therefore,and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery(to sin).”Even though we are FREE,we must determine to stand firm,& not to submit again.Dear Lord,I hear and sense these tauntings every day.My Your Grace remind me of the FREEDOM You have paid for me to have,and remind me of what these these tauntings truly represent->the very things that I was once CHAINED to that Eternally Condemned me to forever being lost to sin.