Daily Devotionals
Daily Devotional: Psalms 119:129-136
Ps 119:129-136 Pe
Your statutes are wonderful; therefore, I obey them. The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple. I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands. Turn to me and have mercy on me, as you always do to those who love your name. Direct my footsteps according to your word; let no sin rule over me. Redeem me from the oppression of men, that I may obey your precepts. Make your face shine upon your servant and teach me your decrees. Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for your law is not obeyed.
Rom 6:20-23
When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is interesting to me how that we (including me) often take a particular passage of scripture and use one part of it as “proof” of something we want to teach and do so to the exclusion of the context. Romans 6:23 is one of these. We like to emphasize the first part about the wages of sin is death when in the context it is the latter part that receives the emphasis. Eternal life is the gift of God!
This gift is because we have become slaves to God, slaves of righteousness. This slavery is voluntary so that we find our fulfilment in serving. We see the love of God, we know his goodness, and we understand that he always wants what is best for us, so in response, we want to be like him. Like Jesus, we want to go about doing good. We want to demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.
Like the Psalmist, we pant for his word and we long to obey it. We have died to sin so that it no longer reigns over us. Our constant goal is to make the will of God our own will. This doesn’t mean that we never sin again. It means that we seek to be like him because we belong to him. Like Paul (Romans 7) we see our actions out of harmony with our desires and beliefs at times. But thanks be to God, that law of sin and death doesn’t apply because in Christ, there is no condemnation!
O Lord God, help me always seek to do your will. Help me make your will my own so that my life is perfectly in harmony with your perfection. I know that I fail at times, so I thank you for your continued forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Thank you for the many Christian friends you have put in my life. Thank you for my physical family. Thank you for the wonderful life you have given me. Thank you for taking me through the rough times over the years. I pray in the name of Jesus.
Robert
