the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
Romans 12:1
‘A living sacrifice’
Read Romans 12:1-21
I want to promote godliness among godly people. Let all who know the mercy of God subdue the passions of our flesh and the lusts of our hearts and avoid the moral decadence of society. ‘For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world’ (Titus 2:11-12).
The basis of my appeal is the grace of God alone. Consecration to God is just reasonable service from those who have been saved by grace in Christ. I will not appeal to God’s elect on the basis of the law. I will not hold over you the law’s terror, threatening you with punishment, or try to bribe you into devotion by the promise of reward. ‘We are not under the law, but under grace’ (Romans 6:15). ‘Mary... sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word’ (Luke 10:39), because having been forgiven much, she loved much. Love, mercy, grace and gratitude are powerful, irresistible motivations for men and women who are saved by the grace of God. I know that such reasoning will never cause self-righteous religious people to give or do anything for God. They must be motivated by either the fear of punishment, or the promise of reward. I say again what I have said so often before: if the fear of punishment or the promise of reward will get you to do what the love of Christ does not constrain you to do, you do not yet know the love of Christ. If the law is more powerful to motivate you than the gospel of the grace of God, it is because you are yet in bondage to the law and under its curse.
Child of God, I am calling for you to ‘prove the sincerity of your love’ (2 Corinthians 8:8). ‘I beseech you therefore, ... by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.’ ‘Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s’ (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).
