Category: Devotions

The family in the home is one of the basic centres of the Kingdom of God. Before there was a Church there was a family, before there was anything created there was a family, before God was Creator or Saviour He was Father.

The home and the family was instituted by God, it is exalted in the Bible, it is the symbol of something greater, it is one of the main foundations of society and it is the primary influence on character development.

Yet we live today in a society where the family is threatened from all sides. The home is threatened. But the Church is here to restore the family. To not only repair it and stand for it but to become a family for the fatherless and the widow. The sincerity of the Church’s love is seen in its creation of family. “We are family here.” “Come and join the family of God.”

Love must be sincere: “Be devoted to one another in love.” (Romans 12 v 10) Or as the NASB rightly helps us, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.” The word Paul uses for love is philadelphia and it was used for the love amongst the family, hence, brotherly love. Paul is saying we should have devotion, tender family love towards each other. That is what we find in every Church, right?

I am sure we can all think of examples where we are devoted to that person in brotherly love. We can also think of those people who we struggle to love. They are the people who hurt you, spoken against you and who do not even like you never mind reciprocate any love you might have for them. How do we show brotherly love to these people? “… in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” v1-2.

Make the list. That’s who we are called to offer sincere love to. That’s who we show family love to. We need the Spirit’s help of course for we still have a long way to go to become like Christ.

But this is the battle the Church has to win. We must reveal philadelphia to a world who was robbed of that experience. “It doesn’t matter who you are; or how damaged you are; it doesn’t matter how hurtful or proud you have become; we leave all that to the head of the family, to the Father; our role is to philadephia you; that’s what you get here; welcome.”

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” (Romans 12 v 9)

“Nineteen young children and two adults have died in a shooting at a primary school in south Texas.” That’s what we wake up to this morning.

We cannot be silent about that. We cannot be numbed into a shrug of the shoulders.

Can we?

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

The Syrian refugee crisis had been taking place for 4 years before the world was shocked on 2^nd September 2015 by a little 2 year old boy, Alan Kurdi, whose lifeless body, still wearing his bright-red T-shirt and shorts, was carried and laid face down on the beach not far from Turkey’s wealthy town of Bodrum. The Twitter hashtag that went viral was ‘humanity washed ashore’.

Surely this stopped everything. We couldn’t just carry on with our lives could we?

The world’s largest displacement crisis is still Syria 11 years on from when it started. More than 13 million people have been displaced.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

If love is going to be sincere then we are going to have to respond.

We are not loving if we allow bullies to bully, killers to kill, rapists to rape, abusers to abuse.

We are not loving if we say nothing about the selfishness around us; the consumerism and greed in our society; the family breakdown in our neighbourhood; poverty, violence and racism; the list goes on; evil is here.

There is evil and there is good. It isn’t what we call it. It already exists. It was there before we were born and it will be there after we die. In order to demonstrate love then get involved with both. With the evil abhor it. Call it what it is. Take it on. Detest it enough to defeat it. With the good then cling to it. Paul uses the word in 1 Corinthians 6:16 for the uniting of 2 bodies into one. Be glued to the good. In all of the evils find the good.

The horror of December 2012 is etched in our minds when 26 school children were murdered at Sandy Hook. One 7 year old boy called Daniel, a victim of this evil, was unusually compassionate and always concerned for the special needs girl who he sat with in class making sure she was okay. When she would lose her glasses Daniel would find them. His parents clung to the good and launched a campaign called, ‘What would Daniel do?’ encouraging others to follow Daniel’s legacy of kindness.

Within the horrors of the Syrian camps is a father, Osama, who in being supported by the UNCHR is now able to support his family having been given 5 sheep. One of which gave birth so he has now six! “I’m happy because I can feed my family and sell the milk and cheese at the market,” he said, tenderly holding his young son.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

Today let us not sit back. But let us get involved and let our love be sincere.

Love is all around me apparently, so the song tells me. I feel it in my fingers and in my toes. Apparently, though I’ve never watched, there is a new season of an island of love about to start on the TV. An island of love! That must be some island!

If you wanted to read everything on the internet about love then you would need to sit down in front of approximately 4,600,000,000 articles, so that’s 4 billion 600 million things to read today about love. Or you could just read these 4 words:

“Love must be sincere.” (Romans 12 v 9)

Love from the centre of who you are; don’t fake it. (Message)

Let love be without hypocrisy. (NASB)

Let love be genuine. (ESV)

Paul is about to list how love is seen. But it is seen. If it is real love it is more than words, it impacts, it changes the atmosphere, it influences for the good and it is more powerful than any evil.

Eva Mozes Kor had forgiven the Angel of Death, Josef Mengele. However her adoption of the grandson of Rudolf Hoss, the SS Commander of Auschwitz, revealed genuine, extreme and sincere love. “I’m proud to be his grandmother. I admire and love him. He had the need of love from a family he never had.”

Jung Jin-Wook and her husband had been Korean missionaries in Turkey since 2015, they were great evangelists. Then one day her husband, Kim, was attacked in the street whilst evangelising, he was fatally stabbed twice in the chest and once in the back. He was 41 years old. Later she wrote to her husband’s killer facing court: “I do not understand why you did this, but I cannot be angry at you. Many people want the court to give you a heavy punishment. But I and my husband don’t want this. We pray that you become worthy of heaven, because we believe in the worth of people. God sent his Son Jesus, who forgave those who persecuted him. We also believe in that and we pray that you would also repent of your sin.” It revealed genuine, extreme and sincere love.

The horrendous picture of the naked girl in 1972 running for her life with the other children from the napalm bombs dropped in the Vietnam War went global. But so did her genuine, extreme and sincere love in 1996 at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C when she forgave the pilot who dropped the bombs.

Demonstrate sincere love today, let it be seen, the world is waiting.

The reason why the Church is so effective in the world is because of the focus we give to what we do and that is to worship Jesus Christ. It is all for Him; everything came from Him and we are careful to do whatever we do, for Him. We want the world to see Christ not us.

“We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.” (Romans 12 v 6-8)

Why does Paul choose these 7 gifts? In his other writings he lists a different set. Are these a random list coming off the top of his head? Whatever the answer, the focus is not the gift, nor the one using the gift but it is either on Christ or His Church.

There’s nothing wrong in having courses on how to use the gifts; there’s nothing wrong in being able to recognise the gifts you have or call yourself by a title connected to the gift; but to use the gift for Christ, to use it for others and to do so with love is the whole point I think Paul is referring to.

The excitement of Church is surely when we see gifts such as:

Prophesying: helping people with past, present and future thoughts that are not our own subjective feelings but are from Christ and for the glorifying of Christ (that’s what our faith is all about).

Serving: being that hands-on deacon that stoops down to wash feet and puts the needs of others first so that Christ is seen and to do it all for Christ.

Teaching: opening the Bible so that others can see Christ and glorify Christ.

Encouraging: edifying, building, strengthening others to be all they can be, to be followers of Christ.

Giving: with no other motive but to be like Christ who gave His all, to do it generously.

Leading: do it the way Christ leads, not with manipulation or force but with love and demonstration.

Showing mercy: don’t look down on the disadvantaged, show them happiness and let the smile of Christ be seen through you.

This is the Church that Christ birthed. This is the exciting Church that Christ died for. Let’s step into this today.

The focus of gifts are the Giver not the gift and certainly not the given.

“We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.” V6

Let’s not worship the gift or the given but the Giver.

As we look back on our lives as followers of Jesus we can see not only did He do it all, so we have no place to boast, but also it was all for Him.

“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.” (Romans 12 v 4-5)

I am unable to purposely leave the community of Christ and keep connected to Christ.

I am unable to view life and make decisions accurately through my perspective only.

I am unable to claim any entitlement for I am not the body but part of.

However,

I am here by design with my own uniqueness and a worthy individual contribution without individualistic desire.

I am responsible for the care of others, their value and for their voice to be heard.

I am privileged for I have access to the whole body.

It is all for Him. Yet the benefits are many.

After you have built your life around love and sacrifice; after you have been transformed by renewing your mind and after you have discerned the will of God for your life, be very careful. “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” (Romans 12 v 3)

Just because you are in alignment with God; now that you have learnt what it is to offer yourself to God sacrificially; and as you have resisted becoming like the world around you; there is a danger that you could think that you have done very well.

“Look where I have come from? Look at me? Look what I have made of my life? Look what I achieved? Look what I did for God? Look how God used me? Look at what He built through me? I did all of this through faith. I did it all for His glory. I had to use faith to sacrifice my life. I had to use faith to believe I could do it. I had to use faith to be different when everyone else was fitting in. I had to use faith to step into the will of God for my life. It wasn’t easy for me but my faith in God enabled me to be what I have become.”

The above isn’t an exact quote but it could be.

In the cynical world we now live in, Christian celebrities in pulpits and pews feel the need to display their cv in order for someone to listen to their message, follow them on social media or review their online book. Often their cv looks like a bit like the quote. God is bring glorified because of what the person has done.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.

It is all of Him. Faith to do anything was not our faith it was a given faith by God. All that we have ever done. All of our cv was God’s doing to bring God glory through our life. There is no room for being a big-head. We did nothing. He did it all.

The will of God isn’t an itinerary to follow after spending years trying to discover it. It isn’t a blueprint of a plan which tells you what to do and where to go. If only God would tell me? Why doesn’t he tell me? He tells everyone else but me? These can be destructive thoughts. It is so much more than that.

After you have built your life around love and sacrifice; after you have been transformed by renewing your mind, “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12 v 2b)

Here is my prayer:

Lord, I need to know your ways. I need to know what is from you and what is from man. I need to know the counterfeit. I need discernment.

I desire wisdom in dealing with people. In my listening and in my speaking I need to not fail. I don’t search for wisdom of my mind only, I do need to grow there in my intellect. But this is a wisdom of my spirit that I seek.

There are days when I walk with what seems to be a flickering candle. Today I ask for more than a candle. I ask for divine beams of revelation so that I may know you more in all that I do. Lead me from the shallow end where the deep calls to deep. Let my words become far more significant. Words are just words. Yet words that are illuminated, that come from the place of wisdom and revelation carry so much more weight. I want my spirit, soul, mind and strength to be in my words. I want my words to move people.

Break me so that I no longer love the dark or the candle. Break into me so that the shekinah fills every part of me. I seek no idolatrous God-shaped substitutes. I seek the glory of You that cuts and burns and melts and removes all strange fire within me. I was made for your good, for your pleasing and for your perfect will.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12 v 2)

For the word transformed, Paul uses the word from which we get metamorphosis. Transformation doesn’t lead to death any more than a cocoon leads to the death of the caterpillar. It is, instead, the beginning of life. It is an entrance into the kind of life that God wills for us. So here is my prayer this morning:

Lord, renew my mind. It is the area that becomes the playground for so many negative thoughts. Be my Saviour in that place. Save me from every anxious thought. These are not my thoughts, they come from the enemy, I must take hold of them and stop their destructive pathway. Saviour, save me. My hope is in you. My future is in you. I was saved, I am saved and I will be saved in the future.

We don’t have to fit in. In fact we are called not to do so.

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world …” (Romans 12 v 2)

I love the Message’s take on this: Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. 

The pattern of this world is the world of Paul’s generation but it is also our world of 2022.

‘World’ is not the cosmos but ‘age’, the pattern, the thoughts, the opinions, the agenda in the lives of rulers and the ruled in 2022 or whatever year it is. It is the spiritual atmosphere. Do we know the age we live in?

I see 3 dangers in this age.

There is a war for voice of truth. What is truth amidst all the fake news that is given to people to believe? What is truth amidst man’s rhetoric, boasting and lies?

There is a war for the foothold of politics. I see enemies of anger, judgment and bitterness camped on our lives. I see destructive arguments in social media posts even from within God’s church. Love is swamped by hate.

There is a war over entitlement. Everyone is grabbing what is supposedly theirs. Demands are rising. I don’t see self-sacrifice. I don’t see generosity.

This is the age. Paul says do not conform to this pattern. Be different.

Where there is falsehood speak truth.

Where there is hate show love.

Where there is selfishness give generously.

Be different.