Fri.’s Devo - Our Giving

Read Romans 12:12b-13 Continue instant in prayer. Looking up each word in the Greek that means to constantly be in a place of prayer. How do we do that? WE don’t and can’t, but our spirit can. Have you ever woken up singing a spiritual song in your mind? I did just yesterday and I took note of what it was saying. The Bible says that he will give us songs in the night. So if we can pray while we are sleeping, then we can be in a place of prayer while we are going about our day. I find myself praying and not knowing I’m praying - just talking to God. Our spirit is always in tune with God. The next thing on the list is to distribute to the necessity of the saints. We instantly think of money, food, and clothes, but what about encouragement, friendship, and love. Usually, the people we run into in our day-to-day are not the destitute but the lonely. They are church-goers who might need someone to stand with them in prayer about something or give them a word of encouragement or just let them know we care. I noticed that it said we are to do this to the saints which translates the pure, morally blameless or religious, ceremonially consecrated. Jesus came to his own first, then the world. He invited his friends to the wedding party first, then went to the highways and byways. We are to meet the needs to the church first, then send them out to the world. We are to be given to hospitality which doesn’t mean having parties for our friends. This one has to do with entertaining strangers. Being hospitable to those who can’t pay you back and without any ulterior motive. Who knows, sometimes these strangers are angels in disguise. Lord, make our prayers more obvious to us. Unite our minds with our spirits that we might discern how to pray and meet the needs of others.

Thurs.’s Devo - Exhortations to Christians

Read Romans 12:9-12a The rest of this chapter is a list of things we should be living as a Christian which starts with pure, unhypocritical love. We are to hate evil and love good, love each other like we were brothers and sisters and prefer one another to ourselves. The next one is to not be slothful in business. This one really hit me because I have experienced some really bad business people lately. Slothful means tardy, irksome or grievous. That means you are dependable, on time, and you stand by your word. What a witness that is in a world that seems to have little concern about the other person. God doesn’t separate our business life with our spiritual life; it is all the same. The next exhortation is to be fervent in spirit which just means on fire spiritually. Fervent has to do with boiling liquids or making solids glow. It also means to be earnest. So the Holy Spirit in us would be the liquid oil that should be burning, which would make us, the solid, glow. If the Holy Spirit is alive within us we will do the next thing on the list which is serving the Lord. We are to rejoice in hope. “Rejoice” in the Greek means to be cheerful and calm especially on meeting and parting. It means to always begin and end on a happy note. We do this not because our circumstances warrant it, but because we have hope in a God that does not disappoint if we trust him. It doesn’t mean that we have to lie about our problems, it just means that we wisely choose who to share them with. The public needs to see Jesus on our faces, not our problems. They have enough of their own. Our hope is that we won’t have these problems for long - they don’t have that hope. Lord, help us to share this hope you have put inside us and to love always.

Wed.’s Devo - Our Spiritual Gifts

Read Romans 12:1-8 The first verse tells us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God. The Jews gave many sacrifices to God. Some were living like the rams, lambs, pigeons, turtle doves, etc., and some were not, like: grain, wheat, corn, etc. We are asked to give God our bodies as a LIVING sacrifice. In the Greek “living” means lifetime. So our bodies are to be a forever sacrifice to God. They are to be holy and well pleasing to God which is our logical worship to God. The way we can do this is answered in verse 2. We are not to pattern our lifestyle after the world’s. We can do this by allowing the Holy Spirit to change the way we think about things. The Holy Spirit will give us discernment to know what is beneficial, what pleases God, and what is God’s complete will for our lives. This will take humility and a right mind that can believe by faith. We are all given different gifts to work together. God gave us the grace we will need to move in the gift he has given us. If we are given the gift of prophecy, then the degree we move in that gift is proportionate to the faith we have. If we are to be a minister, then we must wait for our ministry to come to us. The same with teaching or exhorting. (I have a friend who when asked what her spiritual gift was she said, “Exorcism” meaning exhortation. She didn’t realize what she had said till much later.) If our gift is giving then we should do it with sincerity and generosity. If our gift is to rule or preside then we should do that in a business earnest showing mercy and love. There are times that we will move in every gift and there are times we need to just move in our gift and let others move in theirs. That is being part of a whole - The Body. Lord, change our way of thinking. We give the Holy Spirit license to renew our minds in You that we would move in the gifts when they are needed.

Tues.’s Devo - The Forerunners

Read Romans 11:24-36 We Gentiles are the branches that were cut out of the “wild tree” and grafted into the good olive tree. The olive tree is Israel; they are the “natural branches”. They will be grafted back in when the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. Their eyes have been blinded so that they can’t see it till then. Then, their whole nation will be saved. They may be enemies of God right now because it is the Gentiles time, but they are still loved by God and destined to come back to Him. We can relate to them because there was a time when we didn’t know God and God reached down and opened our spiritual eyes so that we could believe. He will do the same thing to the Jew. Paul concludes that God is wise beyond our understanding and He is in total control. He has a plan that is well thought out and perfect. So how do we account for the fact that there are Jews today who do have eyes to see and have chosen Jesus as their Messiah? God always has forerunners that supersede God’s plan. They go ahead and plow the way for the others. They make the paths smooth. John the Baptist did this for Jesus. He paved the way for Jesus to walk on. They are the prophets and intercessors who can see the future before it happens. Their job is to pray, preach what they see and warn the people of what is coming. They do the dirty work, receive the persecution and usually live a very lonely life. Their reward is great! Today the forerunners are those who are living in the promise land now yet bearing the persecution of being misunderstood and ridiculed. They are going where no one thinks is safe and doing the work of the gospel with power and might. God is doing amazing things through these brave faithful warriors. I want to be one of them. Lord, give us the fortitude and desire to go ahead and pave the way for others to walk. Lead us into the battle.

Mon.’s Devo - The Branches

Read Romans 11:12-23 Paul is prophesying into a time when the Gentiles will be used to bring the Jews back in. If the fact that the Jews rejected Jesus ended up in the Gentiles being grafted in, then how much greater will it be when the Jews come back in. It will be like the story of the prodigal son. The father will be so happy he will celebrate with much pomp. Paul is called to the Gentiles, but his heart is still to see his own people come to Jesus. When the Jews rejected Christ and God opened up the invitation to the world, many came in and still come in today. Before Jesus comes back again, the Jewish people will have their spiritual eyes opened and they will accept Jesus as their Messiah. This will be like the dead being brought back to life. The beginning of the Israelites was holy - Abraham. He was their root. But over time wild trees were grafted in and produced wild branches. To talk evil about the bad branches is to not have the spirit of God in you. Many of the Gentiles believed that the bad branches were broken off so that they might be grafted in. Paul explains that this is true: the wild branches were broken off and the Gentiles are grafted in by faith. But, he warns them not to get proud because if God didn’t spare the Jews when they had no faith, he will do the same to us if we have no faith. God is both gentle and severe. He is severe towards the Jews and gentle towards the Gentiles right now, but it is contingent on our belief. God can and will graft the Jews back in. Lord, we are gracious that you have grafted us in but our heart is to see your chosen people grafted back in. We pray peace and revelation to come to Israel.

Fri.’s Devo - For God So Loved the World…

Read Romans 11:1-11 God’s plan from the beginning has been to save the world, but he chose the Jewish nation to show how he deals with those who are his own. Being a Jew didn’t guarantee their salvation - trusting in God did. Just because they rebelled against God doesn’t mean that He gave up on his people. Paul explains that he is a Jew and he believes in Jesus even though most of the Jews didn’t. He compares it to the time of Elijah when he complained to God that he was the only prophet left serving him in 1 Kings 19:10. God’s reply was that there were 7,000 in Israel who had not bowed their knees to Baal. Then he told Paul that he was not the only Jew that was a Christian, but God had a remnant of people who believed Him according to the law of grace. I have to remind myself of that, like when I join a new gym, move to a new city or start a new job. God has his people everywhere. Sometimes we just need to let our light shine so that others of like-minds can see it and come to us. Maybe they think they are the only ones that are believers. The only way we will know is if we are bold in our conversation and actions. Looking back at Romans, only the Jews that were chosen obtained grace, the rest have been blinded by the spirit of slumber. Their spiritual eyes and ears have been closed by God. God did this so that through their fall, the Gentiles could come in. When the Jews see the Gentiles fall in love with their God and believe in Him it will provoke them to want to know him again. It is all a part of God’s plan to bring redemption to the whole world. Lord, may our lives be an example to everyone we meet of how we love you.

Thurs.’s Devo - The Covenant of Faith

Read Romans 10 My conclusion of the last chapter is this: We all deserve judgment, but God chooses to have mercy on some and invite them to know him. It is my privilege, and hopefully yours that we have been invited into this great mercy called grace. Paul feels the same about Israel. He sees that they have a zeal for God, just no knowledge of who he is or what pleases him. Instead of finding out they have come up with their own form of righteousness. Christ put an end to that way of trying to be righteous enough to approach God. If you choose to follow Moses law to get to God then you must follow it to the tee. But, there is a better way which is by faith. We don’t have to go to heaven or hell to find it - it is found in our heart. I comes by confessing with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. If you do this you will not be disgraced - God will save you. If salvation is this easy then we need to tell everyone, because how else will they know. That is why God give his people the commission to go spread the gospel. So faith is to anyone who hears and believes not just the Jew. In fact, Moses prophesied that God would use a people other than the Jews to know him and this intimacy that they have of God will cause the Jews to be jealous and upset. But Isaiah added that all the time God is stretching forth his hand to the Jewish people even though they are disobedient and they speak against God. Salvation by faith seems so easy and simple to us who have been taught this our whole lives, but what if you had been taught to do things to please God, and there is no way to know if you did. Then being saved by faith might seem preposterous to us too. It took a huge leap of faith to switch from law to grace for them. We like formulas - they are predictable. God is not a formula and walking with him is a walk of faith. Lord, give us the faith to walk with you.