Thursday 16 May 2013

Thursday Reading: Romans 8:9-17

Key Verse: Romans 8:12
12  Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.

Devotion:
If we continue to live by our earthly and fleshly ways then we are going to end up going one way and that is not going to be walking alongside God. The more we walk with the world the more we force a wedge between us and God. God cannot and will not abide our sinful ways. Why should He have to put up with the sin that His Son has already died for? By walking in those ways we are turning our back on what Christ has already done and saying that it was to no effect!

It is our duty to stop walking in those earthly ways and to try to walk a closer walk with Christ in The Spirit. The more we live with sin the more we die with that sin. Even if we are professing the name of Jesus Christ, when we walk with sin we have to put up with the consequences of walking in that sin. The consequence of Christ taking on the sin of the world was His terrible suffering and death. The consequences of our walking in sin may well be our own suffering as well. Just because Christ has paid for our sin debt does not mean that we should be able to do whatever sin we like from that day forward!

When we look toward God’s ways and toward His law then we will be able to turn our backs on the sinful lives that we used to live. It is not our own strength that will allow us to do so but the strength that God gives us that will enable us to turn away from that sin. The ways of the world are sinful ways and we are forever trapped in those ways as long as we are in this world. It is God who has given us the lifeline and it is He that holds on to the other end as our Anchor.

We are not under the same bondage to the law that the Children of Israel were in the Old Testament. Yes we are under those same laws, but that bondage has been broken by Christ giving His life on the cross for us. It is those same laws that have shown us that we are sinful men and those same laws that have convicted our souls, but it is what Christ has done for us on the cross that has set us free so that we no longer live to try and fight our own fight. The Holy Spirit lifts us free of that bondage so long as we walk with Him.

Points to Ponder:
Do you feel broken by the old laws?

Do you know you are free with Christ?