Amy Boucher Pye

Tag: sin

  • Devotional of the week: Slaves to righteousness

    But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness… But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. (Romans 6:17–20, 22)

    Photo credit: Eagle by HooLengSiong on Flikr
    Photo credit: Eagle by HooLengSiong on Flikr

    The theme of leaving behind the old self and embracing the new shines through the letters of the apostle Paul. Of course this follows from his dramatic conversion. For one moment he was persecuting Christians to the point of death while the next he was rendered blind as Jesus revealed himself to him, changing his life (and the world) forever.

    But as we see in today’s passage, the new life doesn’t happen automatically. One’s will needs to be involved and committed. Paul employs the example of slavery, showing how we need to offer ourselves – our minds, hearts, emotions, actions – to right living before God. This then produces purity, holiness, and eternal life.

    I recently heard an illustration that warns against our temptation to entertain sin. An eagle sees a fresh carcass floating on some ice, but moving toward a waterfall. The ice provides the eagle a place to land and from which to pick at the carcass. As the waterfall approaches, the eagle sneaks in just a few more bites. But when it tries to lift off, it finds its claws are frozen into the ice and falls to its death.

    No, I’m not suggesting we are heading for that waterfall! For as Paul says, because we have become slaves to God, we will have eternal life. But the eagle can be a vivid cautionary tale against living out of the old self.

    For reflection: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

  • Devotional of the week: Psalm 18:8-12

    Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty

     

    Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him—the dark rain clouds of the sky. Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning. (Psalm 18:8–12, NIV)

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    As David tells of God’s deliverance, he uses powerful images to show how Yahweh manifests himself to his people. We see God’s anger at evil and sin through the smoke, consuming fire, and burning coals. Fire, and especially consuming fire, is a common metaphor in the Bible. It purifies and cleanses all that is not holy as it dispels the darkness. Like the fiery sun, it is the source of life.

    Though holy to the core, God in his graciousness hides himself in the dark clouds, for his presence would overwhelm us. We who are sinful cannot stand before him unaided. Even hidden, his brightness shines through.

    God’s holiness is an attribute we modern people often dismiss, ignore, or dilute. For instance, we may fail to name sin when it pervades our lives. It may be systemic evil, such as racism or classism, that we disregard. It may be our “harmless gossip” at church, school, or work. It may be a root of bitterness to which we cling. We so easily compromise, rationalize, and liberalize.

    But God calls us to be holy as he is holy. And through his Holy Spirit he enables us to live a life of righteousness, truth, and love. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). He will give us the resources we need to be holy, to stand up for truth with a spirit of grace. And out of this will flow his life-affirming gifts: ‘the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22).

     

    For prayer:  “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our ‘God is a consuming fire’ ” (Hebrews 12:28–29).