2 Chronicles 6:12-8:10, Romans 7:14-8:8, Psalms 18:1-15, Proverbs 19:24-25
Today is the 22nd day of July. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. It’s great to be here with you today as we kind of get into the new workweek. So, hope you had a wonderful restful weekend and are just ready to live into this week. And we do that daily by taking the next step forward in the Scriptures and allowing them to speak into our lives into all the issues that we might be facing. And, so, let’s get to it. We’re reading from the English Standard Version this week. Today, second Chronicles chapter 6 verse 12 through 8 verse 10.
Commentary:
Alright. Let’s review a couple of things that the apostle Paul said in our reading from Romans today. He said, “for I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want but I do the very thing I hate, 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 for I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” I mean, does that sound familiar, or what? And if it does, and it probably does sound familiar then we’re in good company because the apostle Paul is saying this, and he confessed these things in this letter to continue the discussion of the law that we’ve been having since we began Romans. So essentially, Paul’s telling us that the war that is between right and wrong, or that is between good and evil, it may indeed be a cosmic struggle, but the war is waged inside of a person, right? So, often we’re just looking externally all around us at the world at our community at whatever is wrong and screwing up our lives, not realizing that the battle is inside of us. And, so, what Paul’s trying to explain here is that the law is a good, and spiritual things given by God because it simply makes us aware of this fact, that the battle is happening. In our own strength there’s no way. It’s a losing battle, which is exactly what Paul’s saying, “everything that I’m trying to do that’s right is not what I’m doing and everything that I’m trying to avoid is what I am doing, wretched man that I am.” Right, that’s what Paul’s saying. “Who’s gonna free me from this? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” So, according to Paul for himself and for us, Jesus changed the paradigm, the entire trajectory implied of all of humanity. There’s no longer any condemnation for those who belong to Jesus, for those who are in Christ. And because we belong to Him His Spirit frees us from the power of sin and death, something that the law couldn’t do, right? So, the law could show us the situation and even point the way to perfection, but as hard as we try, we can’t achieve it on our own. And, so, we keep failing and doing the things that we don’t want to do, but through Jesus the paradigm is changed, and Paul described that paradigm shift. “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 for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” And isn’t that what we’re after, life and peace…I mean…isn't…isn’t that all what this running around and all the jumping through the hoops and staying on the treadmill and all of the activities that we do, isn’t that what we’re looking for, life and peace? And when we just stay in the fray, how’s that working out? So, let’s live in to what Paul is instructing us to do. Let’s consciously turn to the Spirit, set our minds on the spirit, the Holy Spirit. Let’s call upon the Holy Spirit when the things of the flesh arise – envy, lust, rage - any of the things that have been described in this letter so far that will disrupt peace and wholeness in our lives. When those things arise, we set our minds on the Spirit and remember that…that we have a choice. And this isn’t just a new…like this wasn’t a choice because Paul wrote this down in a letter. This goes all the way back to the beginning of the Bible, right? Remember Moses saying, “today I have given you the choice between life and death between blessing and cursing. Oh that you would choose life.” May we choose life. Because what we have found in the book of Romans today is that there is a way to choose life. It is just beyond us to achieve on our own. We cannot get there on our own and we cannot get there through obeying the rules. The rules show us the way, but we can’t do it on our own as we well know, but we have a Savior. So, we can exhale, we can relax, and we can set our mind on the Spirit and follow the Spirits leading. This is the path. It is set before us. May we choose life.
Prayer:
Father, we invite you into that. It’s ultimately about surrendering to the fact that we will not be able to stay in control. It’s like we want all of the advantages of your kingdom and we want to do it right and so we will try our very best, only to continually fail because we could never achieve it on our own. And, so, we’re giving up trying, which sounds counterintuitive, but we are surrendering to you. We cannot do this, but you can. And, so, we set our minds upon you and invite you to lead us in all of our thoughts and words and deeds today. Come Holy Spirit, we set our minds upon you. Come and lead us into all truth we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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