Our Christian practice involves expressing love within the community of faith. The remainder of Romans 12 tells us that we must also extend love beyond the community of faith…to those outside the walls of our facilities. Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them. Be happy with those who…
Category: Romans
Put it into Practice:: 1
Last weekend I finished my three week series from Romans chapter 12 titled, Training Camp. Together we learned that the foundational elements of church are worship and equipping for service. The final piece puts it all together in the practice of our faith. The final verses of Romans 12 deal with our Christian practice in…
Check Out Your Equipment:: 3
Romans 12 begins with Paul’s statement on worship. In worship we present our bodies and have our minds renewed, enabling us to discern and agree with God’s will. This pattern works for the individual believer as well as the corporate body. As we agree with God’s will and put it into practice, humility is required…
Check Out Your Equipment:: 2
“Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other” (Romans 12:4-5, NLT). Right on the heels of his statement about humility, Paul provided two epic sentences about the body of…
Check Out Your Equipment:: 1
Last week I posted a series on worship. I defined worship as “our appropriate response to the self-disclosure of God.” The value of corporate worship is that it energizes the church for its mission beyond the walls. As we present our bodies and become renewed in our minds, we are able to discern God’s will…
Go to Meeting:: 4
My final observation from Paul’s classic text in Romans 12 was that worship results in a life that is re-oriented and re-directed to the will of God. In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published his final work, titled, On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres. His supposition displaced planet Earth as the center of the universe and…
Go to Meeting:: 3
This week I’ve been posting about worship from Romans 12:1-2. The third observation I want to make is that worship involves your total being. In the text, worship involves the presentation of our bodies and the transformation of our minds. Simply stated, worship involves both our thinking and our behaving. Allow me to unpack this…
Go to Meeting:: 2
Worship is my appropriate response to the self disclosure of God. While worship may have private and personal expressions, it is also a corporate experience. There are a myriad of ways people feel most connected to God in personal worship. Some connect through a daily devotional exercise. Others through music or nature. There are those…
Training Camp: Go to Meeting:: 1
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice–the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but…
How to Pray for Those Who Don’t (part 4)
When we pray for those who don’t, Paul has encouraged his readers to pray with understanding, but his real emphasis is that we pray God’s mission into action. “But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard…
