The Devotional - R041

The Devotional

Comment:

What has happened on the streets of our local towns and cities? Drivers seem very selfish in that they covet the place you occupy on the roadway. They no longer have respect for safety and they are willingly disrespectful for the rules of the road, people drive as if they lived in a third world dimension. One of David’s general Psalms of Praise records the Mighty Power of God that saves and delivers His people. If it were not for the LORD who is on our side, let Israel say; if it is not for the LORD who is on our side when men rose up against us, then they would have swallowed up alive. This same truth is readily available to us today in 2015. God’s children cannot protect themselves from a mentality of disobedience that grows more demanding with each day. However, it is our obedience to God that grants us safe passage in this time as we march toward eternity with our Father in the steadfastness of abiding in Christ.

Challenge: Romans 12:9-

Today with members in our own families who are in rebellion of our love for God requires us to be TRUE. True to God and true to our loved ones, see Acts 24-16. If we fail this we are like a hypocrite who hides behind a mask. God the Holy Spirit is grieved since we willingly ignore and sin against the command of Romans 12:9. Also let us not forget our loved one who may be seeking relieve from their selfish sin, but when they see that you and I are playing the hypocrite they continue to play in their selfish heart. Therefore God commands we are to abhor (hate) what is evil, and we are to cling (love) what is good.

The above comment and Romans 12:9 does not carry an option, either we will be obedient to the grace law of God or we will not. The choice is ours to behave like a child of God ought to behave. Behaving as we ought is blessing and to behave opposite of obedience is failure, all failure will be judged at the Bema seat of Christ, 2 Corinthians 5:6-18. Loving as God loves is not an over the night experience, in other words we do not wake up after salvation happens loving one-another, the processes of time abiding in the LORD and His Word brings us to love as God loves. Notice as the apostle introduces the attributes of God’s love to his readers – Romans 12:10-18

As citizens of the this nation we have taken the word love and redefined it, since today the definition of love does nothing for the average citizen of the United States of America. We use the word LOVE for everything unlovable, i.e. “I love my car” and let’s get right to the meat “I love sex” or “I love to get drunk” if you are true to yourself you know that you cannot LOVE material things or objects of the human anatomy. This is simply but boldly being full of idolatry and immorality. So the LORD God commands: “ABHOR” that which is evil. Replace this evil expression of the heart with things you can cling to.

God through the apostle Paul has exhorted you and me to live in His Righteousness; I have used this command repeatedly throughout our walk-through of this epistle. If you have trouble understanding where I am coming from in this, let me be a bit more directs. “Be HOLY for I am HOLY SAYS THE LORD” 1 Peter 1:13-21, note 1 Peter 1:16 or Leviticus 11:14-15. And we may say – how can I love someone who is unloving? Good question; in the eyes of God if He were to look at your sinfulness, selfishness and unrighteousness; He would see you as UNLOVING! Therefore, God loves your soul, the soul is who you are in His sight and if you take the time to see others in their soul, you will love them too!

So is there is only ONE thing and in the power of God the Holy Spirit, thus it is not hard for any of us to love or esteem the other better than our self, look through the eyes of the Holy Spirit at the soul of your loved ones. Remember too that, in the flesh (sinfulness) we are able to see the expressions of sinful affections for idolatry and immorality and in this we make hypocritical comments or expressions. So to love as God calls us to love requires obedience to God’s holiness and righteousness. God calls us in His Righteous and establishes us in His Holy standard to love the soul that is resident in every human being. In doing so we are fulfilling the commandment of the law through the grace law of God by loving our neighbor as our self.