Monday Reading: Romans 11:22-25
Key Verse: Romans 11:22
22 Behold then the kindness, and the severity of God; on those having fallen, severity; but on you, kindness, if you continue in the kindness. Otherwise you also will be cut off.
Devotion:
Despite there being many laws and various people that are here to keep, maintain and uphold those laws, people still get mixed up in breaking those laws. Why? Because they think that they can get away with it and do not believe that they will have to face the full force of the law. The one thing that we have to be aware of is that no matter how corrupt our government and law departments get, God will never go down that same route. We can see corruption in so many walks of life and we see many people taking full advantage of that corruption because people before them have taken advantage of that corruption. That does not make what they are doing right...
God’s laws have not changed over time and they will never change. This means that the same laws that were set down in the beginning are still valid for us. Those laws are there for us to recognise that we are falling short of those laws – how else would we recognise that we are doing wrong unless the laws are there? Jesus came to uphold the laws, not to change them. He came to show us that the law of God is real. He came to show us that justice must be followed through. What He also did was to show us mercy and give us a way of surviving the law by asking for His forgiveness. If we believe that to be true then we have been grafted into the church and we share in the goodness that He supplies.
Once we are grafted in we will continue to receive His mercy; but all those who refuse to believe will not receive that same mercy. This text was originally written as an encouragement to the gentiles as well as a warning to the Jews. We do not have to be Jews to be in the church because God has invited all of us in. But, likewise, to be invited in we do have to believe what Jesus has done for us otherwise we will have to face the consequences of being left behind...
Points to Ponder:
Do you find it hard to follow the law?
Are you trusting Christ to help you?
