Thoughts on Romans - Day 35

                                                         Romans 12:9-16
Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹ Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹² Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³ Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.
¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another.

           All this talk about grace - unmerited favor. Paul had to already address one abuse of it in Chapter 6 - doesn't grace give you an excuse to sin? I have had this discussion with an Armenian friend of mine (they believe you can lose your salvation). She says, "You Baptists teach once saved always saved. No wonder your youth are out partying, getting drunk, getting pregnant, and having abortions. They just figure that they can repent, claim 1John 1:9, and go on their merry way forgiven and free to do it again." I would respond, "You charismatics just go do the same things only as long as you don't die while doing it, you can go to the next youth convention and have a thousand salvations because it is all these kids getting re-saved after losing their salvation by living in sin." We all have our loopholes that we try to use in order to sin. I addressed this when we looked at Chapter 6 so I won't go into detail on this grace abuse other than to say, here in Romans 12 Paul tells us to hate what is evil and cling to what is good. If we really meant it when we repented of our sins when we got saved, that means at the start of our following Christ, we hated sin and recognized it was so bad that the Son of God had to die on the cross for it. We need to remember that. We need to preach the gospel to ourselves every day. How can we dabble in sin if we truly are saved. We should hate it, recognizing that the flesh is inside us still wanting it. That is why not only do we have to remind ourselves how bad it is everyday but we need to actively cling to the right things. Make plans to go the right paths and put guardrails in your life to avoid the wrong paths. It takes a made up mind to daily avoid sin and do what is right.

          The other grace abuse mentioned here is laziness. When I got accepted to medical school, I no longer studied in college. Why? Because I was "in". When we get saved, we are "in". God's grace is given and applied to us, we are given the Holy Spirit, we are adopted into God's family and just as in the case of my children, no matter what they do, I can't love them any more or less. Therefore, why work? Why be zealous? Paul gives 3 reasons in this passage. First he says "serving the Lord". When we become Christians, 2Cor. 5:15 says we are no longer living for ourselves but God. If we got saved just to get "in" it shows a relative misunderstanding of salvation. We are saved to restore a love relationship with our creator which had been destroyed by sin. When we get saved we should be zealous to serve because we love God. In a marriage relationship I should be zealous to serve my wife not because "happy wife happy life" (the ultimate self centered quote)but because I love her and love to see the joy on her face when I do something for her.

       Secondly Paul says "joyful in hope". "Hope" in the Bible isn't used in the same way it is in English, "I hope so". In the Bible it means "confident assurance", and usually pertains to our secure future no matter what happens to us down here. We should be zealous because we realize that this is not our home. We are aliens here and only have a short time to make a difference for all eternity. We need to be storing up treasures in Heaven rather than on earth. Laziness or a lack of zeal shows that we really are living for the kingdom of earth rather than the kingdom of Heaven and we have to question when we got saved did we really just say, "please take me to Heaven after I get all that the earth has to offer."

        Lastly this passage mentions "one another". Whenever the Bible mentions "one another" it refers to our relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We had already seen in previous verses that once we are saved we belong to each other. We should love each other. Even if I don't want to go serve in a work project, or an evangelistic project, or a mercy project that the church is doing, or immediately what my small group who I have more of an intimate relationship with, is doing, I should do it because I love my brothers and sisters in Christ who are going to be there. I should treasure the opportunity to spend time with them even if I can't use a hammer or saw or am tone deaf. Just to be with them should be incentive enough. If that isn't enough incentive, just to let them know they are loved and supported. If someone asks the class to come with them and pass out flyers in a neighborhood and no one comes, that person thinks, "no one cares for me". We can't as brothers and sisters be that way!

           Lord, I don't want to be lazy in your service. Restore my zeal for the right reasons. Amen