Read Roman 12:1-21 before starting to read this post…
After reading all of Roman 12, I realized that a lot of it
speaks to me and at the same time a lot of it is very hard to comprehend and
live out. Roman 12 starts out by telling us that we should allow our bodies to
be living sacrifices for Christ and we should understand what the will of God
is. Living sacrificially is hard to do, even for the most faithful and
strongest Christian and follower of Christ that you may know. We all mess up at
times and we all slip into the temptations of this world yet, we are clearly
told to live sacrificially, to do things that are pleasing to God, and to
discern what His will is for us. That’s hard to do.
In verse 3, it says, “ think of yourself with sober
judgment” and I want to focus on the word sober since many times we instantly
think of sober in regards to drinking however that may not always be the case.
Being sober means not being excessive and over doing things, with that being
said, I honestly have to say that many times I am not sober and I can almost
guarantee that you, as the reader, aren’t either. I’m not saying that I get
“drunk” but I am saying that I allow other things in my life to keep me from
being sober. I allow other things to keep me busy and over doing it at times
that I may not always have the best judgment and thinking. I love the work I do
and being in ministry but even in ministry, there comes a time where we need to
retreat away from our daily activity in order to become sober and refreshed.
What prevents you from being sober? What might God be asking you to retreat
from in order to become sober again?
After that, it goes on to tell us about some of the various
gifts that God has given us, however not every gift is given to everyone. Each
person is different and God has carefully given each person gifts for a reason.
This has been something that I have tried to shy away from at times since at
times, I get tired of hearing people telling me what my gift is since sometimes
I wonder why God gave me one of the predominant gifts that I have rather than
allowing me to be more predominantly gifted in other areas. I mean have you
ever felt like or wanted to be gifted in another are or tried to downgrade the
gift that stood out the most in you? When looking at yourself and evaluating
yourself, do you overlook what others see in you or do you allow God to use you
by the gift that He has given you? I personally know what one of my predominant
gifts is however, I also believe that there is some quantity of each gift in
us, some just might need to be worked on to be seen and some may never be
realized and looked at in our own eyes, but what do others see as your gifts
and what is God wanting to do through you and through your gifting?
After telling us about living sacrificially and then telling
us about the gifts that God has given us, it then goes into telling us what the
marks of a true Christian are and honestly, if you read carefully and process
what is being said, it’s hard to grasp and you realize that a lot of the
characteristics are not always true in today’s society and the church. I’m not
going to go into detail about every characteristic talked about since you
should have read them before reading this post, but as Christians, do we
exemplify these characteristics or are we failing at living by the “rules”?
There are two that I want to explore more with you.
The first is, live in harmony. If you have ever played an
instrument or been to a concert, then you know that harmony is important and
what makes the concert enjoyable. Yes, you could go to an orchestra concert and
listen to only the violins but that’s only part of the orchestra and you are
missing out if that’s all you are able to hear. The same is true in the
Christian life, we may be Christians but we are missing out if we are not
living in community and sharing our lives, experiences, stories, etc with
others. Just like God gave each person specific gifts, we are all needed in the
body of Christ, we can’t do it all on our own. We may be good and can do a lot
but think about what would happen if we all worked together and truly joined
together as the body of Christ. Live in harmony with one another!
And the second rule I want to expand on is, mourn with those
who mourn (or be sad when they are sad). Many times I feel like we forget this
“rule” and are joyful at times when we should be saddened by an instance
because there are others mourning. When something evil happens to someone and
the person being mean/ inflicting evil on another person or situation ends up
having the same thing happen to them or worse, do you find yourself glad that
they were facing what they were? (For example, after 9/11, when Osama Ben Laden
was killed, did you rejoice or were you saddened?) If you said that you
rejoiced then you weren’t exemplifying Christian living. I am guilty of not
always exemplifying Christian living and not mourning with others when they
mourn but see things as revenge or what people deserved but that’s not what
Christ called us to do. “Revenge keeps evil in circulation.” No matter how bad
we think someone is, we shouldn’t wish bad upon them or revenge but we should
pray for them and hope that they find peace with themselves and with God and if
something bad does happen, then we should mourn and be saddened, maybe not for
what happened but for the fact that we or someone else no longer has the
opportunity to exemplify Christ’s love to them and help them to accept Christ
as their Lord and Savior, that’s what we should be mourning about since God
doesn’t want to see people end up in eternal condemnation but to accept Him as
their Lord and Savior. It grieves God to see people live in sin and never
accept Him or get to know Him so it should sadden and grieve us, as Christ
followers, also.
So, which of the Christian living rules is hard for you,
what do you see the body of Christ collectively doing well and doing poorly,
and what might God be asking you to work on?
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