Romans 13:12-14 “The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”
The night, to me, refers to the time in our lives when we were with out Christ. The daytime, in contrast, refers to the time in our lives when we turned our lives over to the Lord and began the relationship with him.
There is a call in this verse to walk as in the daytime, to turn away from the sins of the past. But how are we to do that. The answer is in the verse, we are to do a few things; one, to put on the “armor of light”, two, to put on the “Lord Jesus Christ”, and three, to “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.”
The “armor of light” I believe is the same as the “armor of God” referred to in Ephesians 6:13-17. The “armor of God” in Ephesians is a lot to cover, but I’m going to write it in here and try to cover it in another post. Here it is, “Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,”. Try studying this yourselves, its amazing.
Putting on the “Lord Jesus Christ” is a little different. In 1 John 4:16 we learn that “God is Love”. We believe that Christ and God are one, so to put on God is to put on our “Lord Jesus Christ”. But what do we know about love? 1 Corinthians explains that without love whatever we do is nothing, we must have love. Also verses 3-7 go on to say “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” So, basically to put on Christ is to put on love, and to love is huge.
Finally, to “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires”, in other words means to not allow the opportunity for ones self to sin. You see, if we watch where we go and what we do, we can slake our desires to sin. When we go places we once went to while in the “night”, our flesh says “hey, I remember this place and what I did here. Let’s do it”, and that itself makes it hard for us as Christians to make the right decision. So don’t go places or do stuff that tempts you to sin and gratify the desires of the flesh.
So, put on the “armor of light”, put on our “Lord Jesus Christ” and “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires”
Amen
6/26/07
6/19/07
Spill it
James 5:16 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
How many of us who are sick, hurt, or struggling spiritually, actually talk about it with other Christians. I don’t know about everyone else but I know I tend to keep what is going on with me pretty secret. But, the verse up top here says that by telling other Christians what we are dealing with, their prayers will do much good.
As a group of people who want to serve God, I petition us all to embrace this idea fully, it will benefit our walk with Jesus immensely.
If you are all like me then opening up is a hard thing to do. If we embrace this then we have to be ready to be uncomfortable, to step out of our bubbles, and take a step of faith.
We need to repent of our old ways of keeping the things about ourselves secret, and embrace the new idea of revealing it to others so they can pray for us.
Amen
How many of us who are sick, hurt, or struggling spiritually, actually talk about it with other Christians. I don’t know about everyone else but I know I tend to keep what is going on with me pretty secret. But, the verse up top here says that by telling other Christians what we are dealing with, their prayers will do much good.
As a group of people who want to serve God, I petition us all to embrace this idea fully, it will benefit our walk with Jesus immensely.
If you are all like me then opening up is a hard thing to do. If we embrace this then we have to be ready to be uncomfortable, to step out of our bubbles, and take a step of faith.
We need to repent of our old ways of keeping the things about ourselves secret, and embrace the new idea of revealing it to others so they can pray for us.
Amen
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