Coffee With The Lord

Romans 12:9-21: My last reading in January, the month of “resolutions,” using the “Necessary Food Bible Reading Plan” I authored…

On this last day of January – the month of “New Years resolutions” – many of which, I’m sorry to say, have probably been discarded or fallen into disuse… (Hopefully some of them have survived with determined discipline!)

So this morning, during my time of “Coffee with the Lord,” I read a passage that was a little like reading through someone’s “New Years resolutions” on January 1! In my Bible it was given this title: “Behave Like a Christian!” Is consists of a varied and valuable list of behaviors that, if followed, would make an incredible impact on our world in the name of Christ and the Gospel! Be sure and read it (and my advice is that you read it slow and reflectively – let each item “sink in” deeply)…

So, after reading it, I’m overwhelmed! Just overwhelmed!! I wrote this in the margin of my Bible today… “Where to begin? I fall so far short! I could camp out for a month here! No… for a year!! Oh Lord help me – assist me – enable me! Remind me! Transform me! I want to live like this every day! I long to be this kind of Christian… NOT OVERCOME BY EVIL AROUND ME, BUT OVERCOMING EVIL WITH GOOD!! That’s my prayer on January 31!

Matthew 8:19–22: “A scribe came up and said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’ Another of the disciples said to him, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.’”(ESV)

A religious leader and another of Jesus’s disciples are taught in these verses two very important lessons about following Jesus…

1) Before you say impulsively, “Lord I will follow You wherever you go!” – COUNT THE COST!

2) But when the invitation/the call comes,.. SAY “YES!” DECISIVELY and don’t begin to make excuses!

Romans 12:1-2: What an important, key transition in Scripture (from one part of Romans to another) – verses that hold the key to a transformed life…

“In light of God’s redemptive plan and provision (i.e. “His mercy” – Romans 1:18 – 11:36)… Offer yourself completely and wholly to God! Do it as an act of worship – a “living sacrifice!” Don’t allow the “world” – the culture around you – to press you into its mold – instead allow the Lord to transform your entire life – inside-out – by “renewing your mind!” And the result – the outcome? A demonstration and expression of God’s will in and through your life – “what is good and acceptable and perfect!”

Bartel’s expanded paraphrase