Thursday 20 Aug 2020

August 20: Romans 6:19-23

Key Verse: Romans 6:23
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Devotion:
There are some verses which are used by themselves to remind us of the limitations of human life and the eternity of life in Heaven and this is one of them. But to put it into context gives a much deeper meaning than we normally think of when hearing this verse.

The author not only had a way with words but was able to reach out to the people to whom the letters have been written. In this case, these letters to the Romans were aimed squarely at the Roman citizens because of their almost separatist lives they tried to lead from other cultures. To say they thought of themselves as one above all other cultures was not an exaggeration!

We see this today in our modern societies where the ruling class often thinks of themselves as being far separated from the working classes – all for the wrong reasons. God does not teach us to be separatists, despite some Baptist cultures. Christ came to teach us to love our neighbours, and that included the people who thought of themselves as being above or below you in social standings. The simple rules of God were to be applied equally to one and all!

When we do realise how much we work against society, we should be stopping in our tracks and turning our lives around to show we have changed. This could be the simplest form of realising you are a sinner and asking God into your life. This could be realising you have lead a life steeped in rampant racism and changing your life to included other races as equal and as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Whatever, we do need to realise we are not above God’s law. We are not above others. We are all God’s Children and we need to work together to live our lives for Christ!

Points to Ponder:
What do you get out of every-day life?

Do you realise just how much more you can get from eternal life?