Eternity Daily Bible Study - No. 493 Series: Romans 1-8 "A Righteousness That Is By Faith" Verses: Romans 1:5-7 Topic: Loved By God, Called As Saints. Date: 1st August 2005 Romans 1:5-7 We have received grace and apostleship through Him to bring about the obedience of faith among all the nations, on behalf of His name, (6) including yourselves who are also Jesus Christ's by calling: (7) To all who are in Rome, loved by God, called as saints. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace, apostleship, calling, sainthood, love, grace, peace and the obedience of faith.... The gospel is primarily about these spiritual and inward sorts of things. As importance as success and prosperity are they just don't get a mention among the eternal verities that form the bedrock of our faith. This is because our faith is forever, and when something is forever only the eternal is at all important. Even a hundred years of stellar success are as nothing compared to eternity. The calling of all Christians is to holiness, to sainthood and to perfection. Few will be apostles, but all can be holy. Holiness is a state of being that is perfectly aligned with God. The holy person is the perfect recipient of God's love and the perfect performer of God's will. Holiness is not achieved by striving, but by receiving Christ by faith and living in His grace. You do not become holy by engaging in an ever-increasing lists of do's and don'ts. That was the wearisome burdensome path of the Law and it failed. Holiness comes out from Christ within and comes from "tuning in to God". Holiness is akin to a resonance that we sing to once we learn to sing in tune with God Almighty - in a spiritual sense; I do not mean that we actually have to be musical. Rather that holiness is like a frequency that we "get" and gradually acquire within ourselves as we let our faith apprehend Christ and His glory. The angels are holy because they sing the hymns of Heaven and do His will swiftly. They were created holy - in tune with divine things, they did not have to strive to become holy, or to do this or that, they simply are at one with the divine nature and will - and that single fact makes them holy. By contrast Satan's profane nature came from simply deciding to sing his own seductive tune. When Paul says that we are called to be holy he means that we are called to be in loving harmony with the Creator in our nature, our thoughts and our will. This loving harmony means two things: a) consecration to the sweetness of the faith relationship b) not sinning - because that is "missing the mark" or in the analogy I am using "living out of tune with God". Paul puts two things together in his short phrase: "loved by God, called as saints." The first is that God's love is prior. Once we receive God's love and become consciously aware of His love, then it becomes much. Much easier to live holy lives like the angle sin Heaven, full of praise and consecration and joy and swift obedience. That is why one of the main jobs of the Spirit of Holiness is to teach our hearts the love of God that makes us holy: Romans 5:5 This hope does not disappoint, because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Ephesians 3:16-19 I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, (17) and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, (18) may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God's love, (19) and to know the Messiah's love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God. God's love poured out in our hearts, tunes us into Heaven and makes holiness a real possibility. That is why worship is so important. Powerful Spirit-filled worship helps us to be truly aligned with God. Worship and holiness are not duties we perform but attitudes we live out in reverence to God. You cannot force worship - though you can put yourself in the right place and time and frame of mind to worship. Similarly you cannot force holiness, but you can do a lot to help it along the way. Holiness is not detachment from real life but is rather alignment and resonance with God in the midst of real life. However to do this we may need to detach ourselves from certain destructive aspects of "the world" - such as violent television programs, pornography, and all that is foul, prideful or wicked. Because holiness is perfect loving harmonious alignment with the nature and will of God it is not constructed by the natural man (which has no idea of what such harmony means) rather it is received by faith and is from faith to faith. Faith causes us to trust the nature and will of God and thus to understand the nature and will of God and so to come into harmony with the nature and will of God. External holiness, such as that of the Pharisees, consists of the "rules and teachings of men" and fails to bring anyone into harmony with the nature and will of God (Colossians 2:19-23) but rather makes them "twice the sons of Hell" (Matthew 23:15) For the Law makes nothing perfect! (Hebrews 7:19). Faith in Christ and the interior work of the Holy Spirit is the ONLY path to holiness and external regulations cannot add to it, perfect it or hasten it (Galatians 3;1-5). The path of holiness is to believe God, receive and apprehend His love and then live a life of love of God and neighbor in the light of God's teachings and promptings and leadings. For it is those who are led by the Spirit that are the sons of God! (Romans 8:14) Blessings In Christ, John Edmiston (johned@aibi.ph) __________________________________________________________________ REFER OTHERS: If this devotional is a blessing to you, maybe you have a friend or family member that would like to start receiving this daily bible study. You can forward this to them, and they can use the following link to subscribe. http://www.aibi.ph/eternity/ or they can just send a blank email to: eternity-dbs-subscribe@strategicnetwork.org BLOG: If you missed a day or would like to read the bible studies online you can catch up using the new Eternity Daily Bible Study Blog at: http://aibi.gospelcom.net/eternity/wordpress/ EBOOKS & ARCHIVES : http://www.aibi.ph/eternity/ - includes free ebooks containing each series of Eternity-DBS bible studies. 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