Friday 17 Nov 2017

November 17: Romans 3:19-20

Key Verse: Romans 3:19
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

Devotion:
Have you ever looked at society in this way? The law convicts you and declares you guilty, not because someone has caught you, but because you have done something wrong. That means we should all be on our way to jail. It also means we are all hypercritical law breakers because we, as a society, are condemning people to jail just because they have broken bigger laws than us! If we truly do follow the law to the utmost, then we are going to be broken, distraught, condemned, failed humans.

We like to think we do have a good set of laws in our own countries, and we try our best to keep those laws. And yet we don't like to follow the laws which we do not agree with. It sounds so bad when you say it out loud. But that is exactly what we do. We follow the laws which we like or at least agree with. We try to keep the laws when others are around so we can look good. We like to look good in front of others so we try to look good in front of them. We don't like to point out when others do small things wrong, because we don't want them to point out when we do things wrong. There is no real encouragement to follow the law and make a good example...

But when we come to look at the Law of God, we find a whole new set of laws. We find laws which tell us what we should be doing and not telling us we are guilty of what we have done wrong. The laws of God are there to encourage us to reach further into doing what is right, but also to show us that we have done things wrong. God's laws are there to show us that we are sinners, we do things wrong. God's laws remind us of what we are doing wrong so we can convict ourselves. When we begin to see what we are doing wrong, we can identify where we have to change. We are still guilty until God forgives us. That comes through admitting our sins to Him and asking for forgiveness... So simple... not so hard...

Points to Ponder:
How many laws do you break each day?

How many laws do you break through your thoughts alone?