Category Archives: Romans

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Giving God A Bad Name

Clean Up Your Own Act Before Calling Out Another's Behavior

UNSHAKEABLE: It is easy to get caught up in the culture wars and the Christian political movement and every other cause that bashes the evil practices and mindset of this world. To be sure, there is nothing necessarily wrong with being outspoken about your spiritual values. However, we would do God and the Good News we represent a big favor if we would clean up our act first. How about we try this: Let’s first live what we say we believe, then we can talk! Let’s make sure our beliefs match our behavior. Let’s not just mindlessly parrot, “what would Jesus do” — do it! Let’s live it from the core of who we are.

Giving God A Bad Name

Unshakeable Living // Romans 2:23-24

You are so proud of knowing God’s laws, but you dishonor him by breaking them. No wonder the Scriptures say that the world speaks evil of God because of you.

While I certainly don’t think this is unique to our current context, year after year, we read the same scandalous reports of supposedly righteous people falling into the very sin they so publicly condemn: A family-values senator is found out to have kept the company of female “escorts.” A high-profile evangelical leader is exposed for abusing power, misappropriating church finances, or having an affair. The divorce rate among churchgoers is nearly the same rate as non-churchgoers. Believers are said to blend in ethically with just about everyone else in the workplace.

It is no wonder that non-Christians tag us as hypocrites and despise our God!

It is easy to get caught up in the culture wars and the Christian political movement and every other cause that bashes the evil practices and mindset of this world. To be sure, there is nothing necessarily wrong with being outspoken about your spiritual values. However, we would do God and the Good News we represent a big favor if we would clean up our act first.

Jesus had some pointed things to say about that:

Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor. (Matthew 7:1-5)

How about this: First, try living what you say you believe, then you can talk! Make sure your beliefs match your behavior. Don’t just mindlessly parrot, “what would Jesus do” — do it! Live it from the core of who you are.

We may not win the whole world for Christ, but we would be a lot more effective than we are now. And perhaps we would convince a few people along the way that this Good News is a pretty good deal.

Get Rooted: Charles F. Glassman writes, “Gratitude, forgiveness, perseverance, self-honesty, and self-control fosters optimism, kindness, and success. [But] self-righteousness yields bitterness, hostility, and self-destruction.” Self-righteousness and spiritual arrogance are exceedingly difficult to spot in ourselves. That is why we need a trusted brother or sister to shed the light on our true character. I would encourage you to take a risk and share the above quote with a loving but straight-shooting Christian friend, then ask them where you line up with those descriptives.

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God’s Goodness To Little Goody Two-Shoes

Look Into God’s Mirror and Make Sure You’re Not Looking Like a Pharisee

UNSHAKEABLE: To be an intolerant, arrogant, hypocritical, coercive, pious religionist is perhaps the worst enemy of the advancement of God’s kingdom. These are the types who say one thing but do another. They spout piety yet behave anyway but pious. They sit in judgment over the world’s evil, yet their hearts are full of the very sin they condemn. They make church all about themselves and very little about reaching a lost world with the Good News. And more than any other repelling factor, these religious do-gooders keep seekers from church, sully the reputation of God before a watching world, and solidify the excuses of sinners not to darken the doorway of the church because “of all the hypocrites who go there.” Here’s the deal, dear friend: make sure you are not in that camp. Open your heart to God right now and ask him to examine you. Don’t let hardening of the spiritual arteries lead you down the Pharisee path. There are enough of them in your church — it doesn’t need one more.

God’s Goodness To Little Goody Two-Shoes —Ray Noah

Unshakeable Living // Romans 2:3-4

Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God’s judgment when you do the same things? 4 Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

It is one thing to be a willfully sinful pagan, but it is quite another to be an odiously sinful religionist, which is the type of person Paul turns his theological guns on here in this passage. This one is of that tribe of people who fill the pews of churches every Sunday, perhaps sitting inconspicuously right next to you — self-righteous, spiritually arrogant, smugly sanctimonious, and self-absorbed. As John McClintock quipped,

The Pharisees are not all dead yet, and are not all Jews.

To be an intolerant, arrogant, hypocritical, coercive, pious religionist is perhaps the worst enemy of the advancement of the kingdom of God. These types say one thing but do another. They spout piety yet behave anyway but pious. They sit in judgment over the evil of the world, yet their hearts are full of the very evil they condemn. They make church all about themselves and very little about reaching a lost world with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And more than any other repelling factor, these religious do-gooders keep seekers from church, sully the reputation of God before a watching world, and solidify the excuses of sinners not to darken the doorway of the church because “of all the hypocrites who go there.”

But, as Paul says in Romans 2:1-4, these religious moralists are without excuse, because the theological knowledge they possess brings them even greater accountability before God. The very judgment that God has pronounced on willful pagans will fall upon these folks as well. (Rom 2:3). It is these who will likely hear those haunting words spoken by our Lord, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” (Matt 25:41) In truth, it is they, themselves, who never really knew the God in whose name they sat in judgment over the world.

So, just what is their problem? Mainly, their self-righteousness has led them to focus only on the external acts of religious piety while ignoring the more important inner core of the heart — love, devotion, compassion, kindness, and purity — that so greatly matters to God. In so doing, they have minimized their own sinfulness before a holy God and have lost whatever connection with him they might have once, if ever, enjoyed. According to Romans 1:5, their hearts have become “hardened”, (“stubborn”—NIV), which in the Greek language is the word, sklayrotace — the word from which we get sclerosis, the hardening of the arteries—a silent, invisible but deadly condition. That is exactly what the religious, hypocritical, judgmental moralist has — hardening of the spiritual arteries — and that indeed is a problem.

Even while blind to their own sickly condition (Rev 3:17), yet again, the Good News is still at work in their lives. Paul says in Romans 2:4 that God’s common grace (“goodness”) is upon even these do-gooders. He has allowed them space to come to the truth rather than face the judgment they deserve (“forbearance”). He has given them a period of time (“patience”) for his grace and forbearance to bring a change of heart, behavior, and life-direction (“repentance”).

And while we are not to mistake God’s kindness for softness, isn’t it amazing that God’s grace still reaches out to the most annoying sinners of all—those sanctimonious saints sitting in their pew, turning people away from God right and left by their religious hypocrisy and spiritual coerciveness? Yet our stubbornly loving God continues to woo even these goody two-shoes to himself through his own goodness to them. Lord have mercy!

So here’s the deal, dear friend: Let’s make sure you and I are not in that camp. Open your heart to God right now and ask him to examine you. Don’t let hardening of the spiritual arteries lead you down that path. There are enough goody-two-shoes in your church — it doesn’t need one more.

Neither does a world that God so desperately desires to redeem!

Get Rooted: In light of this devotional, take a look at Psalm 139:23-24 and turn it into a personal plea before God: “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

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Bad News: God Is (Good and) Angry

There is No Good News Without Addressing the Bad News

UNSHAKEABLE: We’re not too comfortable with an angry God. We prefer a tame God to a dangerous one. But Romans 1 reminds us that God is angry, and is currently revealing his wrath against a deliberately rebellious humanity. How? Not by inflicting plague-like judgment on the sinful as he did in the past and not by ending the world and sending sinners to eternal hell as he will in the future. No, God’s judgment today is particularly sad since it involves the removal of the Divine restraints that have protected humanity from its worst self. You see, we have come to the point where in judgment, God has said to our rebellion, “if you insist, then go ahead, do your own thing.” And that has brought the world a boatload of bad news! Yet the Good News remains available to delete all the sins of the world — even the most horrific ones — through the sacrifice his only Son.

Bad News - God is Angry

Unshakeable Living // Romans 1:18

The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.

We are not too comfortable with an angry God, are we? In our day, people prefer a tame God to a dangerous one. As Dorothy Sayers aptly put it, “We have declawed the lion of Judah and made him a housecat for pale priests and pious old ladies.”

But if we are to be faithful to the authority of the Scripture, then we will have to acknowledge that God hates sin, and his righteous wrath will not only be poured out on sinful humanity some day in the future but is already “being revealed” against those who have gone their own way.

Now you might ask, how is God’s wrath being revealed? Well, from time to time we have seen how God has broken into human history to reveal his wrath by inflicting punishment upon both evil nations (the plagues visited upon Egypt being the most well-known example — Exodus 7-14) and disobedient individuals (for instance, the sudden death of Ananias and Saphira — Acts 5:1-11). We also understand that when people die in their sinful state, there is a literal hell that awaits them, a physical place where they will suffer the eternal wrath of God. And likewise, we know that one day, at the end of the age, the Great White Throne judgment of God (Revelation 20, Romans 2:5-6) will mark the final end of sin, when Satan, evil systems, and all the wicked will be cast into the lake of fire forever.

But the question remains: Is God’s wrath currently being revealed against sin, as Paul declares here in verse 18? The answer to that is a clear “yes!” And though all these other forms of punishment are tragic, this type of judgment is particularly sad, since it involves the removal of the Divine restraints that have protected man from his own worst self. There comes a point where in judgment, God says to rebellious mankind, “if you insist, then go ahead, do your own thing.” Paul describes it this way:

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. (Rom 1:24)

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. (Rom 1:26)

He gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. (Rom 1:28)

And not only throughout this passage, but throughout humankind’s sad history of suffering and violence, we see the awful results of man’s rebellion against God: foolishness, darkened thinking, sexual perversion, degradation, idolatry, depravity, “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” (Romans 1:29-31)

No wonder God is angry: He offered us his righteousness; we chose the worst kind of evil. And what makes this even worse is the depravity of the human race was, and continues to be, quite deliberate. Let’s be clear, man’s rebellion against God is not from ignorance, it is intentional, since “what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.” (Romans 1:20) God’s truth has been made clear to every human being through the inner witness of the Creator’s implanted Spirit and through the Creator’s awe-inspiring creation itself, yet man has actually gone out of his way and has “suppressed the truth.” (Romans 1:19)

Obviously, that is a boatload of bad news! Yet amazingly, because of the immutable character of our gracious and merciful God, even within the bad news there is good news—Good News that should cause our hearts to explode in grateful praise. You see, there is yet another way that “God’s wrath is revealed from heaven” as Romans 1:18 states: At Calvary, God fully focused his judgment against sinful man on his sinless Son, Jesus, as he hung on the cross. In the greatest act of grace and mercy ever, Jesus bore the wrath of God for the sins of the world when he was crucified. (1 Peter 2:24)

As a believer it can be so disheartening to watch the world get increasingly and more inventively evil as the days go by. And it can be quite discouraging we as take the hits from those who don’t want to hear about a God who actually punishes sin. Yet we can take heart that even in the midst of all this evil, as God’s wrath is being revealed against sin, there at the center of it stands the grace and mercy of a God so loving that he was willing to sacrifice his only Son for all the sins of the entire world.

And that includes you and me!

Get Rooted: If the bad news of growing evil in this world disheartens you, take a moment to reflect on the Good news: that even in the midst of this evil stands the grace and mercy of a God so loving that he was willing to sacrifice his only Son for all the sins of the entire world. So, offer your gratitude to him for his grace and mercy, and make sure to share the Good News with those around you.

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Not Ashamed of the Gospel

The Good News is for Everyone

UNSHAKEABLE: Just what is “the gospel”? The word itself comes from the Greek word, euangelion, which means “good message,” or the Good News! And what good news it was to Paul, and to everyone who hears and believes it, for through the resurrected son of God, Jesus Christ, God has revealed that Christ’s own righteousness can be imputed to thoroughly and hopelessly sinful mankind, thus bringing even the worst sinner into a right relationship with God himself. Good News? You bet, for nothing less than eternal salvation is freely imparted to people worthy only of eternal damnation — including me and you!

Not Ashamed of the Gospel

Unshakeable Living // Romans 1:16-17

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes, first for the Jews, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

As you read the opening paragraphs of Paul’s letter to the Romans, you immediately recognize the apostle’s emphasis on “the gospel.” In the first seventeen verses of this introductory section alone, the word “gospel” is used six times. “Gospel” is not only the theme of these first few verses, it is not just the touchstone of the entire letter — Martin Luther referred to Romans as “truly the purest gospel” — it is ground zero for Paul’s life. The Apostle Paul is simply enthralled with the gospel!

And why not? It was Paul’s Damascus Road encounter with the Subject of the gospels that radically and instantaneously transformed his life from a Jewish zealot to a zealous Christ-follower. (Acts 9:1-6) Overnight, Paul went from pious Jew and persecutor of Christians to preacher of the Christian message. No wonder Paul declared, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” If the gospel could save a religious thug like Paul, then that same righteousness from God could certainly be revealed to anybody and everybody!

But just what is “the gospel”? The word itself comes from the Greek word, euangelion, which means “good message” … the good news! And what good news it was to Paul, and to everyone who hears and believes it, for through the resurrected son of God, Jesus Christ, God has revealed that Christ’s own righteousness can be imputed to thoroughly and hopelessly sinful mankind, thus bringing even the worst sinner into a right relationship with God himself. Good news? You bet, for nothing less than eternal salvation is freely imparted to people worthy only of eternal damnation.

Furthermore, this imputed righteousness that brings eternal salvation is free of charge to sinful humanity. People can do nothing to earn it, and can never be holy and good enough to deserve it. This, too, is good news. God’s righteousness covers human sin at the expense of another — Jesus. It is only by faith — another key term in Paul’s letter, used in these opening words four times — that God’s righteousness is received. Simply by believing, accepting, receiving, and submitting to the gospel — both the Subject and the Predicate, the person and work of Jesus Christ — one is thoroughly saved for time and eternity. Not by works, not by human righteousness, but by personally accepting God’s righteousness through Jesus’ death and resurrection does faith catalyze the grace of God that produces salvation. It is therefore by faith that the righteous will live — in both the active sense of receiving salvation and walking with Christ and the passive sense of being brought into eternal life once this life ends.

And that, indeed, is good news — the Gospel — the best news you will ever receive.

Now that is nothing to be ashamed of! In fact, it is something to be proud of and to proclaim near and far at every chance we get. For that good news has made you right with God, and it is the only message that will bring salvation to those who were once as you and I were — thoroughly and hopelessly sinful and inexorably bound for a Christless eternity.

If you haven’t shared this Good News with anyone lately, maybe you should today. Just unabashedly tell them your story — no matter who it is that God puts in front of you. Even the worst, most resistant, and unlikely sinner falls into the category of “everyone who believes,” which simply means that they, too, can be saved!

So go ahead and deliver some good news. Who knows, you might be telling it to the next Apostle Paul.

Get Rooted: First, memorize Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” Then meditate on what it means and what it took to have personally received a righteousness from God. Finally, make a commitment to share “your” gospel with one person this week, asking God to lead you into a spiritual conversation with the person of His choosing.

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Why Resurrection Matters

It is the Key in 2023

UNSHAKEABLE: What do you need to know for a successful experience of 2023? Simply this: Christ is risen! Jesus’ resurrection is the fulcrum of our Christian faith and, indeed, the pivotal point in all human history. As C.S. Lewis said, “If the thing happened, it was the central event in the history of the earth.” If Jesus rose from the dead, then he is Lord of all. If he didn’t rise from the dead, then our faith is useless, and, as the Apostle Paul says, Christians are hopeless and to be pitied above all people. But we believe Jesus rose from the dead. We have staked our faith, our lives, and our eternities on the scriptural and historical evidence that Jesus broke the chains of death that bound him in the tomb and rose again to life, thus defeating death, hell, and the grave. Since that is true, nothing else matters — Jesus is the Son of God and Lord of all— and the same resurrection power that raised Jesus from death will enable you today and each of the following days that make up 2023 to live an unshakeable life because nothing else matters.

Unshakeable Living // Romans 1:4

Jesus was shown to be the Son of God when he was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. He is Jesus Christ our Lord.

The late Jaroslav Pelikan, one of the world’s leading scholars in the history of Christianity and medieval intellectual history, wrote, “If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen—nothing else matters.” If you understand the Bible at all, you know this to be true. Christ’s resurrection is all that matters.

The resurrection is the fulcrum of our Christian faith and, indeed, the pivotal point in all human history. As C.S. Lewis said, “If the thing happened, it was the central event in the history of the earth.” If Jesus rose from the dead, then he is Lord of all. If he didn’t rise from the dead, then our faith is useless, and, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19, Christians are hopeless and to be pitied above all people.

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But we believe Jesus rose from the dead. We have staked our faith, our lives, and our eternities on the scriptural and historical evidence that Jesus broke the chains of death that bound him in that garden tomb and rose again to life, thus defeating death, hell, and the grave. As Paul says, “He is Jesus Christ our Lord.”

  • Since that is true, nothing else matters — Jesus is the Son of God and Lord of all!
  • Since that is true, we can place our trust in Jesus Christ to save us from our sins and delivers us to eternal life.
  • Since that is true, we can have confidence in Jesus Christ to be with us every step of the way in our earthly journey, knowing that he will never leave us nor forsake us.
  • Since that is true, we can experience the same resurrection power that coursed through the body of Jesus Christ coursing through our mortal bodies, enabling us to live the abundant life that he came to give us — God’s favor in the physical, emotional, relational and spiritual dimensions of living.
  • Since that is true, we can experience the same overcoming life that Jesus Christ lived, living above sin and in holiness to God.
  • Since that is true, we can boldly share the Good News with lost people of how Jesus Christ has made a difference in our lives. We do not need to be ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes (Romans 1:16). We do not have to be timid about our faith — in fact, if he is truly risen, to be timid should simply not be an option. If Jesus is risen, then he is either Lord of all, or not Lord of all.
  • Since that is true, we can place our lives squarely in God’s sovereign care, get busy fulfilling his purposes through our lives, and commit all our energies, efforts, and resources to glorifying him in everything we say and do.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! And nothing else matters.

Get Rooted: On this first Monday of 2023, I encourage you to offer this prayer: “Lord, you are risen; you are risen indeed — and nothing else matters. Remind me throughout this day as I begin the New Year that I can live in the reality of your resurrection. Enable me today and each of the next 363 days to live as if nothing else matters — because nothing else matters.

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Unshakable: A Devotional Journey Through the Book of Romans

Good News For The Year Ahead

UNSHAKEABLE: Like me, you have a growing sense of the world’s instability as never before. That’s because Planet Earth is being shaken—not only in the metaphysical sense but even in the physical realm. That shouldn’t surprise us as believers because the Bible predicted long ago that as God’s sovereign clock for the end of the age winds down, the world would start coming apart at the seams. The question for us, then, is, can we, and if we can, how do we live unshakeable lives in these times of instability? My first response to that question is that we must be rooted in God’s truth as never before. That means you must regularly read your Bible, reflect on what you’ve read, memorize it, pray it back to God, share it, and most of all, live it out. That is why I’m inviting you to join me during the first quarter of 2023 in saturating your heart and mind with the Book of Romans. Why Romans? Well, as the famed reformer Martin Luther said, “This epistle is really the chief part of the New Testament, and is truly the purest gospel. It is worthy not only that every Christian should know it word for word, by heart, but also that he should occupy himself with it every day, as the daily bread of the soul. We can never read it or ponder over it too much; for the more we deal with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.” Simply put, Romans is the Constitution of our Christian Faith! (Below, I have provided a preview of what this journey will include—a look at one of the great promises from Romans 8 that will give you confidence as you begin 2023.) I look forward to sharing my devotional journey with you week by week and chapter by chapter. And I would love to get your thoughts as you read each chapter, so feel free to add your comments below. Cheers to an unshakeable New Year!

Unshakeable - A devotional journey through the book of Romans with Dr. Ray Noah

Unshakeable Living // Romans 8:31-32

What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”

One of my favorite hymns—yeah, I still love them—was written by the German composer, Joachim Neander in the 1600s. It still resonates with worshipers of all ages some 400 years later. I particularly relish this line in the fourth verse,

Ponder anew what the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriends thee.

Think about that for a moment—it will change your day, not to mention the New Year ahead. As a matter of fact, it will change the trajectory of the rest of your life. The only thing I would change in this otherwise magnificent hymn is the one little word in the second line, “if.” For me, and anyone else who has been redeemed by God’s marvelous grace, that word rather should be, “since.” “If” speaks of possibility, “since” reflects reality!

God has indeed befriended us, amazing as that sounds. If you are having trouble grasping that, go back and read the entirety of Romans 8. What you will find there are some jaw-dropping realities of what God has already done for you through Christ Jesus. Not the least of which is simply yet powerfully this: God has clearly and deliberately stated that he is for you! And, as Paul logically concludes, since that is true, nothing and no one can be against you.

Does that sound like someone has over-promised you something? If it were simply another human being making that claim, I would be suspicious of their ability to deliver on that pledge. But keep in mind that the One declaring this vow to you is God himself! And here is the Almighty’s certification: He offered Jesus, literally, through his virgin birth, sinless life, and sacrificial death, as the guarantee that his promise is 100% good,

If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? (Rom 8:32, MSG)

Now since it is firmly established that you and I are friends of the Almighty, the realities of blessing, protection, provision, success, and satisfaction in the days, months, and year to come, along with eternity for that matter, are unlimited—limited only by our unbelief.

So, indeed, take a moment to ponder anew what it means to walk in moment-by-moment friendship with your Almighty Father. I guarantee this: it will make all your moments to come a whole lot brighter.

Praise to the Lord,
The Almighty, the King of creation!
O my soul, praise Him,
For He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear,
Now to His temple draw near;
Praise Him in glad adoration.
Praise to the Lord,
Who over all things so wondrously reigneth,
Shelters thee under His wings,
Yea, so gently sustaineth!
Hast thou not seen
How all your longings have been
Granted in what He ordaineth?
Praise to the Lord,
Who doth prosper thy work and defend thee;
Surely His goodness
And mercy here daily attend thee.
Ponder anew
What the Almighty can do,
If with His love He befriend thee.
Praise to the Lord,
O let all that is in me adore Him!
All that hath life and breath,
Come now with praises before Him.
Let the Amen
Sound from His people again,
Gladly for aye we adore Him.

Yes, for gladly we adore Him. How could we not?

Get Rooted: In a few hours, as you celebrate New Year’s Day — and the new opportunities that lay ahead — take a moment to envision what it means to have God as your friend. Since he has graciously befriended you, what difference does that — should that — make in how you approach your work, how you make your plans, how you handle your fears, how you manage your emotions, and in an all-inclusive sense, how you do life? Obviously, it should make all the difference! As a reminder, write on a 3×5 card: God is my friend! Now for the next week, tape that card to your mirror so that you see every morning before you leave for the day and every evening before you go to sleep that God is for you.

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Give Me Chastity–Just Not Yet

Get Your Parts Right

SYNOPSIS: You have been freed from the slavery of sin in order to live in the freedom of a different kind of slavery: slavery to the glory of God. Now you are to use your parts—your mind, mouth, hands, heart, feet, eyes … all of your parts—as instruments of praise and righteousness. Are you? Have you consecrated every part of your body as an instrument of righteousness to the glory of God, or are there some parts that are still doing their own thing? After all that God has graciously done to redeem you from the slavery of sin, the least you can do is exert your will and consecrate your whole life as an instrument of praise.

Give Me Chastity, Just Not Yet

Moments With God // Romans 6:13

Use every part of your body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.

A little girl burst through the door one afternoon, excited to tell her mother what she had learned in school that day. “Mommy, guess what I learned today?” she blurted out.

“What, honey?” her mother replied. “What did you learn?”

Pointing to her head, the girl began to describe her first official lesson in human anatomy, “Mommy, I learned about my parts. I learned that this is my head, and it’s where my brains are.” Then she held out her hands and looked down at her feet, “these are my hands and my feet, and they help me to do things and to go places.” Then she touched her chest and said, “here is my chest, and inside it is my heart. And it keeps me alive.” Finally, she put her hands on her tummy, and exclaimed, “and mommy, these are my bowels, and my bowels are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.”

She got most of her parts right, anyway. And that’s what Paul is calling us to do, to get our parts right by offering them every day in every way for the glory of God.

But do you? Is your brain an instrument to do what is right? Are the things that you allow your mind to dwell on the kind of things that will bring glory to God? If your thought life were to be played out in living color on the big screen, what kind of rating would it be given: P? PG? How about R? What? Really…you’d have to give it an X? What about the kind of things you allow to come into your thinking? Are those things—the media you watch, the places you go on the Internet, the books you read—do they count as instruments of righteousness?

What about the things your hands do, or the places your feet take you? Would Jesus be comfortable doing those things and going to those places? What about your heart—have you closely guarded it, since it is the wellspring of life? (Proverbs 4:23) And your “vowels,” I mean, your bowels—what about what you take into your body? It is the temple of the Holy Spirit, after all. (I Corinthians 6:18-20) How are you treating the temple, the dwelling place of God? Are you treating the ol’ bod more like a temple, or a sewage treatment plant?

Paul’s point in Romans 6 is that we have been freed from the slavery of sin in order to live in the freedom of a different kind of slavery: slavery to the glory of God. We are to be instruments of praise and righteousness with every fiber of our existence:

When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.” (Romans 6:10-11)

Have you consecrated every part of your body as an instrument of righteousness to the glory of God, or are there some parts that are still doing their own thing? Far too many of Christ-followers are like St. Augustine, who once prayed, “Oh Lord, give me chastity, but not yet.”

Dedication and consecration are an either/or thing: Either you are, or you aren’t. God wants you to be totally dedicated to him; fully consecrated in mind, body, heart and energies. And he deserves it, particularly in the light of his costly investment of grace in your life.

You have been saved by grace—God’s unmerited favor. You have been freed from the slavery of sin; you are no longer under the threat of death—all because of God’s rich and undeserved mercy. You have been given the free gift of eternal life—all at Christ’s expense. Even the faith to believe was supplied by God. Don’t you think that in response, God deserves you to give “your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of him”? Since God has graciously done all that, the least you can do is exert your will and consecrate your whole life as an instrument of praise.

Now I will admit, what I am suggesting won’t be easy. In fact, it will be the toughest thing you ever do. (See Romans 7:14-20 if you don’t believe me.) C.S. Lewis said, “The full acting out of the self’s surrender to God therefore demands pain: this action, to be perfect, must be done from the pure will to obey, in the absence, or in the teeth, of inclination.” St. Augustine finally got it; he surrendered his desires to God, fully dedicating his wandering will to the glory of God. Having experienced that spirit-renovation, Augustine made this observation: “Will is to grace as the horse is to the rider.”

Will! So the question is, will you? God has given you his grace. Now mount up and get going! Use your whole body—every part—as an instrument to do what is right to the glory of God.

Take A Moment: Read Romans 6:1-23, then memorize verse 23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Compare Romans 6:21 with 6:23. Do a cost-benefit analysis of the particular sin that you seem to struggle with on a recurring basis.