Tuesday 23 Apr 2013

Tuesday Reading: Romans 11:22-24

Key Verse: Romans 11:22
22  Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.

Devotion:
When we try to figure out people we often look upon them as having two sides and we try to justify many things based on our judgment of them. When we look at God we will often try to attribute two sides as well because we have managed to justify our judgment of others based on these sides. But our definition of God cannot have a good side and a bad side because there is no bad side to God; instead we find His good side and we find a just side as well.

We may look at people’s willingness to look the other way as being part of their good side,  but God will never look the other way. God will see everything and He will not just ignore things when we go wrong. He will try to show us that we have gone wrong and that we need to steer back into the right direction; this is what we may see as a wrathful or severe side that we may not like at first. After all, none of us like to be told that we are doing things wrong all the time.

This just side of God should actively encourage us to continue walking in goodness and not into sin. This letter to the Romans was written to encourage people to continue walking in God’s Laws, obey the commandments and wanting to walk worthy of being called Christians. It also served to illustrate that God had ordained that the gentiles should be called to become part of the church just as the children of Abraham had that right. Using the grafting of branches into the olive tree symbolises that even though gentiles were not originally part of the church, God’s invitation for them to be grafted in to become a permanent part of the church was real and would show rewards as well.

It is one thing for God to show us where we go wrong physically, but for Him to show us where we are going wrong spiritually will hurt us on a much deeper level than physically. This must mean that we need to take even more care of our spiritual growth and health than our physical growth and health. Being grafted in means more than just surviving; it means becoming part of the Church of Christ and living a life that is becoming of a Christian.

Points to Ponder:
Are you ready to accept justice?

Will you accept God’s justice?