Romans
Verse Annotation
Verse 1 - With all that God has done for us, we might ask ourselves what we can present to him. Our Bodies, that is what Paul says, “holy and acceptable to God.” This is our worship in the spirit.
Verse 2 - Even though we exist in systems that oppose a Christian lifestyle, let us not succumb to it. Instead, we ought to renew our minds not every year or month but daily, to know the will of God for the current times.
Verse 3 - 8 - We ought never be accomplices to the dividing of the Body of Christ, neither by saying one church is better or worse; instead, we should recognize that all the members of the body do not have the same function, even though the end goal is the same.
Verse 9 - 11- Let our love for each other be real, accompanied by a hatred for evil and a deep desire for what is good.
Verse 12 - Our prayer life must never be on the table of debate; it should be constant and consistent.
Verse 17 - 21 - We might have friends who constantly do evil to us, even when we want to live in peace with them. They might pretend to be blind to the continuous hurt they are inadvertently consciously giving to you, walking out of your life when you need them, and walking in only when they need something from you, never truly caring for you but for their needs, and always acting in convenience and never in intentionality or sacrifice, while you are sacrificing and inconveniencing yourself daily for them. You might have even tried to bring this up, but they say you should continue sacrificing and allow them to be “genuine” in their selfish, manipulative behaviour. You might have asked yourself what the Bible says about this. Well, the answer is simple: vengeance is the Lord's, we are called not to repay evil for evil. This is evil as it is judged by God himself. You might feel inclined to start acting the same way they do, but that would just be copying a sinner in his sin. Instead, I say this: Take a step back from the relationship, pray to God, and pour your heart out to Him in realness, then you can move on from the friendship or the relationship, especially if it is completely one-sided. Now, there might be times when God wants you to stay there, so be prayerful and discerning.
Reflection
We are all in agreement that God has done great things for us. Amazing things that we cannot even comprehend, especially when we look back on all this, we want to say thank you to God, but sometimes we do not know how. In Romans 12 verse one, Paul instructs us to offer our lives, our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. This is our worship in the spirit. Everything we do, how we respond to our bosses, how we talk to our friends, how we act toward those we hate, all of this affects our body spiritually, so if we desire to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice as a warship to God, then inadvertently, we have to leave pure lives. We have to leave in his presence under his authority for his glory. We can’t allow our bodies to fall into sin, nor can we allow our minds to just branch off in thoughts that do not please God. No longer can we allow ourselves to entertain certain conversations or friends or emotions that do not please God, because we have a target in mind, and our target is to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to God
Paul also goes on to reminders in verse 17 that even though we may be wrong, even though we may be hurt, even though evil may have been done to us, we ought never to take vengeance into our hands. It is hard. It is very hard. The best example I could think of is when you have a friend who you constantly powering into who you constantly called to check how they’re doing you constantly sacrifice your time when they have an event going on you’re there for them you drive them to A point B sometimes even counseling your own events just to make sure that they are OK and there’s some friend who you have poured your whole life into doesn’t do the same. In fact, they do the opposite. They never call to check up on you. They only call you when they need something from you; they only call you when they need a ride. They only call you when they need someone to help them with their own needs, but they never call you out of sincerity just to check up on you.
In this example, you might have even tried to talk to them and be like, " Hey, I’m doing all these things. Why are you not putting the same effort into our relationship? I feel like our relationship is one-sided, and they respond by saying you should keep sacrificing. You should keep driving me when I need to be driven somewhere. You should keep caring for my needs, but also you showed allow me to be genuine, even if my genuineness is selfish even if my genuineness only cares about me and my needs what I want what I need what I want to do at what time with who and not about other people you should be OK with that now a question you might ask yourself is should I act the same way to them and you might have already acted the same way to them, but the Bible commands is that we should not return evil for evil and that’s what Paul is saying, and this evil is not evil according to her own eyes, but is evil according to God’s sight. In accordance with Romans 12:17, in this scenario, we ought to step back, pray, and move forward. Most of the time, moving forward, you might need to step out of the relationship of friendship because it was one-sided from the get-go, and that is not a healthy relationship.
A relationship should be dual sided everyone putting energy in now it might be the case that God wants you to stay in that relationship and during those instances you have to pray and allow God to speak to your heart on the matter how you shield act, even as you stay in the relationship and most importantly, pray for the other person in realness telling God everything you feel towards that person how much heart you feel how much evil you feel down to you and pray that God may change their hearts and open their eyes to what is happening instead of returning evil for evil
Prayer
Thank you Jesus for the favor you show to us day in and day out, a favor which we do not deserve. Thank you for your kindness to us, being patient with us even when you could have justly cut us off. God, we pray for strength and boldness in our lives, we pray that you may help us to live in the joy and blessing of the body of Christ and not in isolation. We pray that you may help us to live in purity and Holiness that we may be able to be fruitful, not for our sake but also for those around us. Give us an explicit awareness that everything we do with our hands, minds, or thoughts MUST be done in your wisdom, through you, and for you.
In Jesus' mighty name I pray, Amen.
-
Add a short summary or a list of helpful resources here.