A Net in Time

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Devotional

We are Heirs of God.

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Today we are reading from Romans 8:12-17.

12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.


I read these words and you know what my first thought was…would I rather be a slave or a debtor?  Then I wondered where that thought came from.

Cause I got to thinking about some cultures if you save a person’s life they are indebted to you and must serve you.   I wonder if that came from the seed that God plants in our hearts about him?

But Christ died for us.  Freeing us from the bond we had, the having to follow the path of sin.  So he in essence saved our lives.

ERGO we owe him a great debt. 

Since we owe him a great debt, should we therefore continue in the path of the flesh?  Of course not!  We owe him a debt, we should live to the life that he has brought us to.

The life we are brought to was that of being a child of God.  An heir of God in essence and reality.  To be a CHILD to God.  That’s what happened when he saved us.  

Should a child of God himself fall back into slavery?

Hold to that.  Believe it.  Listen to the Spirit of God as he whispers it in  your heart.  YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD.   An adopted, for real, child of God.  

These words caught my eye:
and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
You know how good families stick together through thick and thin? Minding each other, watching each other’s back, going through the good and the bad with each other?   This happens in God’s family too.  Hard things will happen.. times of suffering and pain.  Don’t run away from it.  Stick through it. 

When our brothers and sisters in Islamic countries suffer… pray for them, care about what happens to them. When Christian business owners are attacked, send them letters of encouragement.  We are family regardless of where we live, what colour our skin is, our size, shape, national dialect.   So if we know that one of us is suffering, we suffer to along with them.  So be an encouragement and help!

Together, let us be glorified with Christ!
 
 What say you? 

To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here. 

The image I used for the graphic was originally this, and came from my brothers’ portfolio.  You can see more of his images here.   I just love the bird looking out of the hole looking for protected and safe and yet curious about what’s going on outside.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

No Condemnation

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Today we are reading from Romans 8:1-11.

 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 
 Oh!   I love this verse don’t you?   To think that if we are in Christ, there is no condemnation heaped upon our heads!  Why?  Because we’ve been freed from slavery to sin!

 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 
The Law of the Spirit has set us free!  Think on that a spell!   FREEDOM!   No condemnation. That’s what the Lord God has wrought for us.  

3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 
It’s what GOD did.  Our flesh couldn’t… it was too weakened by sin to do anything about the state it was in…but God is above our flesh, above our weakness, so he fulfilled the law so that we could have that freedom to walk in the Spirit. 
 
 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
See…see the advantage of living by the Spirit?   It changes your outlook on life.  It changes mine!   I know it gives me the ability to look for the positive in situations where finding the positive can be a challenge, but God hides blessings in places we don’t expect, so living by the Spirit keeps us open to that, you know what I mean??

I read verse 6-8 and I think oh.. how I struggle.  I WANT my mind to be fixed on the things of the Spirit and so often I find it so hostile to God. caught up in the things of the world around me.   I DO NOT want to be in a mindset that is hostile to God.  I don’t.   So how do I balance this dichotomy within?
 
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Paul is so gracious… so full of reminders that if I am in Christ, I am living by the Spirit.  I am. BUT if I don’t have the Spirit of Christ within me… you know what that means?  It means that I do not belong to God, that I am not in Christ, that I am therefore living by the flesh, a state that is hostile to God.    So, if I have accepted Christ’s work on my behalf, believing in his death and resurrection for me a sinner, than his Spirit lives in me.  Therefore I am not living in a way hostile to God.    OH…Oh.. that I would remember that more clearly more often.  It would help me make better decisions eh?

What say you? 

To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here.  
 

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

The Delight vs The Captivity

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Today we are reading from Romans 7:8-25.

 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
Can you see what sin does in a body?  It seizes opportunities. It uses the commands, the laws, to produce covetousness.  A great desire to possess something.  It makes us want something that we don’t have.   Can you see that?  The law of God was meant to be freeing, but it wasn’t.  The presence of the law revealed the heart…that heart that longs for something more.  BE MINDFUL therefore…what do you covet?  Don’t let it deceive you.  Look for what it holy, righteous and good.


13 Did
that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin,
producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be
shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond
measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
Paul asks himself, if I know that the law is good, did it then bring me death?   The answer to that is NO.  It was sin that produced death using what is good (the law).  This shows sin to be sin.   Paul tells us how often he does what he doesn’t want to do.  I don’t know you about but I’m the same way.  So often I react to the world in ways I don’t want to.  It’s the physical part of me eh?   It’s what sin does.  It takes me away from the spiritual, of wanting to obey the law, and brings me into the physical realm.

As Paul says “So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.”   Just like Paul, I have this desire to do what it is right, but I can’t always get myself to do it.  You know what I mean?   Surely you do.   It’s the age old struggle.

Paul’s conclusion is that it the sin in us that it is at fault.   Not my mental outlook, or the spiritual aspect of me wanting to do what is right, but the sin that lives in us.  It’s at fault.
 
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks
be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the
law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
So here you the law.  It’s good and right.
And you know what you find lying right next to it?   SIN!  
It’s right there, ALL THE TIME.  Staring you in the face.  
Causing you to not do what you know you want to do.
Paul sees clearly the wretchedness of it all. The horror of it.  Wanting to do what is right but being unable to.  Like a snapped trap!

But don’t miss it.. I almost did.  Paul DELIGHTS in the law of God within himself.  That delight is there.   And he sees the battle clearly.  The battle between the spiritual and the physical.  The delight vs the captivity.

But look.. there is hope.   
Paul puts it this way.  Thanks
be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the
law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin
We have help.  God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  He is our help.  No other way through it.  God is our help.   We can serve God with our mind.. sticking to his law.  Our bodies will fight with us being trapped to sin, but With God’s help.. we can still serve him. 

What say you? 

To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here.  

A commentary I found helpful with this passage>
Amazon.ca: Haldane’s Commentary.  
Amazon.com: Haldane’s Commentary.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Marriage compared to the Law

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Today we are reading from Romans 7:1-6.

Romans

 Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she
will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her
husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law,
and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
Paul continues to talk about our freedom to not be enslaved to sin.  Now he uses the example of marriage and how in a marriage, while our partner lives we need to stick to the bounds of marriage.  BUT if our partner dies, we are free to live as we choose.   Makes sense right?   

 
4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
So just as we have freedom after the death of a spouse, can you see the freedom we have now that Christ freed us from slavery to sin?  The law’s power over us is dead.  We are free!     So though we were living under the power of the flesh, stuck in the law, we don’t have to anymore.   It is dead!   Think about that for a moment.

The drive to sin, that living under the law with it’s penalty of death. It is dead!  

We don’t have to live by that old way.

We have been released from it, able to serve a new way.  That new way is the life of the Spirit.  Life I tell you.  Isn’t it wonderful? 

What say you? 

To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Slaves to Righteousness

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Today we are reading from Romans 6:15-23.

Romans

15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 

What are we to be?  Slaves to sin or Slaves to Righteousness.  That is the question Paul has for us today.

He starts off by asking us.  Should we sin because we live under grace?
He gives us an emphatic answer.  NO.

Why?
Because how we present ourselves in obedience shows who our master is. 
 Do
you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient
slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which
leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? 
 We could sin, but it shows that we are on the path to death.  OR we could be obedient to God which leads to righteousness.  What do you want people to see?

17 But
thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become
obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were
committed, 18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. 
Do you see it?   We can thank God that we don’t have to live like we used to.. like slaves to sin!  We’ve been set free!  You see we’ve been taught a new way to be… and are committed to it   Obedient from the heart.  That’s what we become with good teaching.  And that good teaching helps us to become slaves to righteousness.

 19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just
as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to
lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
It’s like Paul is saying..make a choice!   Will you or won’t you… make the choice RIGHT NOW.. to be a slave to righteousness.   To choose to let our bodies be obedient to God.  You once had no real choice right?  Natural limitations and all that, but then God stepped in.  Now you have that choice, so choose to let yourself be bound to the cause of righteousness.  Take the path that leads to sanctification!
 
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But
now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God,
the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We’ve been set free you know?  Do you really know that?  You don’t have to be a slave to sin.  Where it’s reward is that of death. NOW, NOW we’ve been set free.  And if we live by that freedom…the end result is not death, the end result is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

Isn’t that awesome?
 
What say you? 

 To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Death to sin, live letting God use us for Good.

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 Today we are reading from Romans 6:1-14.

 So do you think we should continue sinning so that God will give us even more grace? 
I always find this an interesting question.  The thought that it even needs to be raised!  To me it’s an automatic no, though in some way I can understand people thinking it, so I guess it did need to be raised.  
 
  2 No! We died to our old sinful lives, so how can we continue living with sin? 3 Did you forget that all of us became part of Christ when we were baptized? We shared his death in our baptism. 4 When
we were baptized, we were buried with Christ and shared his death. So,
just as Christ was raised from the dead by the wonderful power of the
Father, we also can live a new life.
Paul gives an emphatic NO.  We shouldn’t be running around sinning thinking we’re all that, so that God’s grace can abound all the more in us.  Seriously dude… when we believe in Christ, in his death on the cross, that means we are part of him.  Do we really want something as ugly as sin to be part of that as well?   ICK when you think about it.  Adding that dirtiness to something so pure.   Paul’s point is this though… we have DIED to our old sinful lives, so why would we want to deliberately choose to continue living in that sin.  Just as Christ was raised to a new life through God’s power, so we can have that new life as well.   Don’t live in the past!
  
5 Christ
died, and we have been joined with him by dying too. So we will also be
joined with him by rising from the dead as he did. 6 We
know that our old life died with Christ on the cross so that our sinful
selves would have no power over us and we would not be slaves to sin. 7 Anyone who has died is made free from sin’s control.
Oh.. I like this line.  ” Anyone who has died is made free from sin’s control.”  To be free of sin’s control.  It’s such a battle you know?   To always want to live in the past, with what I know so well. And yet seeing that brighter future and possibility. Fighting for that.  You know what I mean?   Paul gives us hope here.  He tells what the new reality is.  We have DIED to the old way.  God’s power is there to help us live a new life.   Take that power!  Use it.  Remember that sin doesn’t have control of us anymore. 

8 If we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9 Christ was raised from the dead, and we know that he cannot die again. Death has no power over him now. 10 Yes,
when Christ died, he died to defeat the power of sin one time—enough
for all time. He now has a new life, and his new life is with God. 11 In the same way, you should see yourselves as being dead to the power of sin and alive with God through Christ Jesus.
Paul spells it out for us.
We died with Christ (if we believe in him).   That means we also LIVE with Christ.
Christ, raised from the dead.   We live with him.
He can’t die again.  Death has no power over him.   
Think about that.  We live with Christ…one that death has no power over, he can’t die again.  We live with him.   That’s a surety don’t you find?  A surety of hope, of sin no longer having the upper hand.
I need to see this more clearly in my life, what about you?   To see God’s power to keep me in the new life.
 
12 So, do not let sin control your life here on earth so that you do what your sinful self wants to do. 13 Do
not offer the parts of your body to serve sin, as things to be used in
doing evil. Instead, offer yourselves to God as people who have died and
now live. Offer the parts of your body to God to be used in doing good.
14 Sin will not be your master, because you are not under law but under God’s grace.
Hear Paul’s Words to us.   Do not let sin control your life.   Don’t let parts of your body be used for evil.   Don’t let that sinful self do what it wants.  Remember.. we died to sin’s control.

Instead do this:
Offer your body up to do good.   Give it up to God.  You are under God’s grace, not under the law of sin.   So let God use your body to do good.  I see choice in these words.  People can choose to live the old way, the way they died to.  OR they can choose to let God use their body for good. and live   Follow the old way.. or choose to let God work in you.   Let us today make that right choice eh?

What say you? 

 To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here.

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites

Adam’s Disobedience, Christ’s Obedience

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 Today we are reading from Romans 5:12-21.

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
Remember from Genesis, how sin came into the world?  The temptation of the devil, Adam falling into it?  Sin was brought into the world through one person.  And so it spread to all mankind through that one person.  I found this line interesting “for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law”.  So I thought I’d check out other translations NCV says it this way “Sin was in the world before the law of Moses, but sin is not counted against us as breaking a command when there is no law.”
So until the law of Moses was set into place, sin was not counted against the people, even though it existed.   And since sin existed… so did death.  Adam was a type of the one who is to come (being Jesus) we know from the rest of the New Testament.

15 But
the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one
man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the
grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. 16 And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. 17 For
if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man,
much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free
gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Then God’s free gift happened. And it wasn’t like the result of Adam’s action.  It caused the death of many BUT Christ’s redemptive work.. resulted in grace and life to so many more!  This free gift brought about justification, and life to so many more.
 
18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
This is what we have
One trespass = condemnation for all men.
One act of righteousness = justification and life for all people.
One person’s disobedience created sinners.
One person’s obedience created righteous people. 
Then the law showed all the more sin, but where we saw more sin we also see something else now.. MORE GRACE!  Grace abounding!

Sin reigns in death.
BUT grace.. see grace reigns in righteousness that leads to eternal life though Jesus Christ our Lord.

 To follow along with the rest of this devotional series in Romans Click Here. 

This post may contain affiliate links – using affiliate links from A Net in Time helps fuel this blog and our homeschool – thank you!

©2006-2017 A Net In Time. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. A Net In Time . We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites