Today’s Scripture: Romans 6:10, NKJV- “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
Sometimes we need to keep digging to find an answer. Sometimes we need to open our eyes and look around for an answer. However, to find THE answer we must only live to God. The last few days I have traveled a long way, scripturally speaking, to find myself exactly where I started. I have read additional scriptures to gain context. I have read commentaries to gain perspective. However, here I am, back at Romans 6:10 that tells us “For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.” God, how do I live to You if I do not understand what that means? But if Jesus lives to God, I know that is what I must do.
No one else’s opinions or theological reasoning seems to matter. I am thinking that each of us, individually must come to know how we are alive to God in Christ Jesus as Paul references in Romans 6:11. It may look, feel, and sound differently but God knows the direction and intention of our hearts. Even if our theology is wacky our living to God is true.
In lesson 1 of Celebrate Recovery (CR), we start the journey with Principle 1: “Realize I’m not God. I admit that I am powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing and that my life is unmanageable. The corresponding scripture is the Beatitude of Matthew 5:3, “Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor.” (GNT) We must confess and know our extreme need for God.
Step 1 in CR is based on Romans 7:18, “For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” (NIV) If Paul, who wrote Romans and almost twenty-five percent of the New Testament, could not carry out good, in his sinful nature, I promise that I cannot. That is the whole point of Step 1. We must live to God and not to us.
In Romans 6:13, the interpreters of scriptures have done their best to grasp what Paul was saying:
NIV- “offer yourselves to God.”
NLT- “give yourselves completely to God.”
ESV- “present yourselves to God.”
KJV- “yield yourselves unto God.”
Here I am God. Help me to live to you. Jesus provided us with the way of Romans 8:4 and 8:11. Instead of living according to the flesh we must live according to the Spirit. When the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, is giving life to our mortal bodies our bodies will live life to God.
To recover in anything and live to God in everything we must live according to the Spirit instead of the flesh.
Today’s Prayer: Father God, I need Your Spirit to live to You. I am unable to live to You on my own strength. I need Your power LORD and Your Holy Spirit to live to You as Jesus, Himself did. Please teach us and help us with Your Spirit to live unto You. In the name of Jesus Christ we do pray. Amen.
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