Devotionary

Paul encourage us to live distinctively different lives by loving in a distinctively different manner. We are to love as Christ loved. We are to love others because we have been loved by God. And this kind of love is not optional. In fact, Paul will tell us that the kind of love to which we have been called fulfills all the requirements of the law. Loving is the consummate expression of our obedience to all of God’s commands. Our love is to be visible, tangible, practical and ultimately, sacrificial.

Paul's words carry powerful weight for us today as we struggle to live out our faith in an ever-increasingly hostile atmosphere marked by secularism and moral relativism. We will instinctively resist his counsel just as his original audience did. We’ll want to insist that he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t know how bad things have gotten. But Paul is speaking for God. And God has placed us on this earth as agents of change and ministers of reconciliation.

When hated, we are to love. When cursed, we are to bless. We are called to live in harmony and humility – with all men. And rather than responding in kind to the evil we may face in this life, we are to reflect the grace, mercy and love of Christ and rely upon our hope in the promises of God. It won’t be easy, but it will get the attention of the world. We are called to live radically different lives, and the more we become like Christ, the more we will stand in stark contrast to the world.

In chapter 12, Paul will begin putting shoe leather to the doctrinal insights he has provided. He will now attempt to make the theological, practical, showing us how new life in Christ should show up in everyday life in real, tangible ways. But for Paul, it all starts with sacrifice. It begins with a dying to self in order that we might live for Christ.

There was much about God’s relationship with Israel that Paul didn’t understand. While he could not explain the ways of God, he didn’t believe that gave him the right to question the integrity of God. He was fully confident that God knew what He was doing and that His plans for Israel would be completely and faithfully fulfilled. God was and is reliable. His word stands. His will is always accomplished.

It would have been easy for the Gentile recipients of Paul’s letter to have concluded that the Jews had blown it. They had rejected Jesus as their Messiah and, therefore, God had chosen to take His message of salvation to non-Jews. But Paul, a Jew himself, wouldn’t allow them to draw this conclusion.

Paul, a Jew himself, had watched as his own people continued to reject Jesus as their Messiah and Savior, while the Gentiles gladly accepted His offer of salvation through grace alone, by faith alone in Christ alone. The Jews had heard, and so, they were without excuse. The light of God had shown among them, but they had chosen to remain in darkness. God had called, but they had refused to listen.

Paul didn’t view his commission as a job, but as a privilege. It was his joy to share the grace that had been shown to him. It was his honor to tell others of the life-changing message of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. And as we open up chapter ten of Romans, we are going to see Paul’s passion for the gospel and his compassion for the lost coming together in a powerful display of evangelistic zeal. Paul was willing to risk all so that some might come to know Jesus as their Savior.

The Jews of Paul’s day couldn’t understand why God would offer His grace and mercy to the Gentiles. In their minds, that was unfair. Rich Gentiles who came to faith in Christ struggled with the idea of poor believers being their equals. The ways of God are sometimes difficult to comprehend. He can be mysterious and unconventional, but He is also gracious and merciful. All because He chooses to be. Not because we deserve Him to be.

The Jews in Paul’s audience, who had placed their faith in Christ, were struggling over what appeared to be a falling from grace on the part of the Israelites. But Paul is going to emphasize God’s faithfulness to His chosen people and affirm that God’s word, His promises, have not failed regarding the descendants of Israel. God was going to choose from among them just as He had among the Gentiles. His blessings would fall on Jew and Gentile alike. Based on His grace, not merit.

There is nothing anyone else can do to separate us from God’s love. God loved us enough to send His Son to die for us. And His love will not be completely fulfilled until He sends His Son back to get us. And between those two events in our life, He continues to pour out His love on us as He patiently, graciously and mercifully transforms us into the likeness of His Son. His love for us came at a great cost, and will last forever.

In verses 18-30 Paul will deal with our future glory and our present suffering. He’ll juxtapose our eternal life to come with the life we are called to live in the meantime. During this phase of our journey, we will experience His sanctifying work in our lives, but it will take place along with the ever-present reality of sin and suffering.

The Holy Spirit was God’s gift to the church, providing believers with the power they need to live the life to which He has called them. No longer are we staring at a long list of holy requirements, equipped with nothing more than our sinful flesh to help us live obediently. That method has been proven ineffective in producing holy people. But now, we have the Spirit of God providing for us the power of God and making it possible for us to live as the people of God.

Paul had discovered the reality of the daily battle we all face as believers: The internal war between our old sin nature and the indwelling presence of the Spirit of God. When God saved us, He didn’t eradicate our sin nature. It remains alive and well, and stands diametrically opposed to the plans the Holy Spirit has for us. But God didn’t just give us an alternative to sin, He gave us a means by which we can have victory over it. All through the power of the Spirit.

The law is holy, but it cannot transfer that holiness to anyone. Only Jesus can make the unholy, holy. Only He can replace our unrighteousness with His own righteousness. Because of what Jesus has done for us, we can do good deeds, not in our power, but in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are free to be fruitful. We are free to keep the righteous requirements of the law, not as a form of merit, but as an expression of our newfound righteousness provided for us by Christ.