Romans 11-13
December 18, 2014


I find that there is too much in this passage to blog about all of it, so I'm going to focus on chapter 12.

We spend most of our time talking about how God's gift of salvation is free to us.   That's true, but what happens after we have accepted the gift?   to accept the gift is to accept the giver, and to accept the giver, is to accept His way of thinking, His pattern for living.  It is implied that if we accept salvation, we allow Jesus to reign in us.

That's where chapter 12 begins.   Since God has done this wonderful thing for us, we now pledge our lives to Him.   It begins with a change in the way we think.   We have to learn to process information differently.  What used to be important (physical things) now become less important than spiritual things (eternal, unseen).   Learning about who God is, what He acts like, why He thinks the way He does becomes of great importance.

That allows us to receive all the verses after verse 2.

We should accept that God has others that He loves and has saved working alongside us.  We didn't choose them...maybe we never would have..but God did, and that has to be okay with us.   Work with the people that God places you with.  He has a purpose in it.  And, it's for your good as well as theirs.
Use the gifts that God has given you, and support and encourage others as they use the gifts God has given them.    Since Paul is talking about using spiritual gifts, he follows the same pattern that he
did in 1 Corinthians.  After mentioning gifts, he talks about love.   Using gifts without love leads to confusion, hurt feelings, disunity and dissension.

Beginning in verse 9 Paul make an attempt to describe what a person who truly loves others acts like.   That person would be devoted, honor others, motivated to help and do good, generally filled with joy and hope.  They wouldn't complain all the time when ill, injured or when overlooked, they would be always in prayer, always sharing with others and making others feel welcome.
Who can argue with that?   A person like that encourages gifts to bloom in the lives of people around them.  They don't criticize, tear down, talk about themselves all the time.   This kind of person is truly concerned about others, and the people around them flourish.    That's the kind of person that God wants us to be.  

So, throw away your little black book that has the names of everyone who has ever wronged you.  Don't celebrate when someone else fails, even if you don't like them.  If they do well, congratulate them.  If they struggle, pray with them, care for them and be sad with them.

If only the church world wide could truly catch a vision of what this would look like, we would have less war, less hunger, less bloodshed and more harmony, more peace and most likely a far more harmonious planet.   Who knows how many accomplishments will never be realized because the people who were to discover them were killed in some conflict.   What children who would have become the leaders that we desperately need will never be born because we chose to fight or to use drugs, and in some way eliminated the possibility of their birth?

We won't know the full impact of our sinful behavior...I hope we never know it.  it would be too crushing to realize what harm we have done to the planet and to God's perfect plan.    Instead, we should covenant to do everything in our power to live according to His will for our lives.  Perhaps in some way that will bring about a happier ending to the story than would otherwise be possible.   Maybe our attempt to be more like Jesus will result in some others becoming Christians.


PR