Morning Devotion for the Season after Pentecost
August 5, 2022
The Invitatory
Send out your light and your truth, that they may lead me, and bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
The earth is the Lord’s for he made it: Come let us adore him.
Reading: Romans 8:1-11
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
Meditation: Jo Ann B. Jones
I often wonder what the children of Israel expected once Moses descended from the mountain with the two tablets on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed. Or for that matter what Moses thought once he witnessed these same people worshiping the golden calf. What an immediate and stunning rejection of God! What could Moses then have expected of the influence of the Ten Commandments on his people? Yes, they identified them as the children of God, but what about the influence of these ten statements on their obedience and their ability to escape sin? What an unrealistic expectation that would be. Yet the desire to be good on one’s own nonetheless persevered. The law of Moses cannot save those who live under it. Instead the law simply demonstrates that we are unable to keep the law. We cannot escape our sinfulness and make ourselves acceptable to God.
Paul’s corrective is altogether necessary and important as he boldly proclaims the Good News. He speaks forthrightly, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Many people feel condemned by God. They know they are sinners and see no way out. Verse 1 is a powerful opening for addressing that burden.
But wait, for there is in this text a source of misunderstanding to be addressed. It is the use of the word flesh. There are two words to consider: flesh and body. For Paul the body is neither good nor bad in and of itself. The issue is how the body is used. When the body is used as God intended, the body is good. But when the body is used inappropriately and opposed to God’s intention, it is for Paul a sinful body. To live inappropriately is to live according to the flesh, suggesting how our willfulness can overtake our faithfulness. In his perception of new life, Paul contrasts Spirit and life to sin and death. We who believe in Christ have been set free “from the law of sin and of death.” It was the behavior of those in the flesh that weakened the law of Moses. God condemned sin itself in sending God’s “own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Christ was a full human being; he had and was a human body. But he did not misuse his body by sinning and therefore he was, by Paul’s definition, never flesh.
One result of the death of Jesus was the fulfillment of the law in and for those “who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” The positive walk is one according to the Spirit, as opposed to over the deleterious walk of the flesh. When focused on the flesh, the result is death, physically and spiritually. It causes one to be separated from and hostile to God. When influenced by the Spirit one realizes life and peace.
This passage raises one of the most basic questions in life: who is in charge? Who calls the shots? What is our mindset? What is important to us? In a time in which anxiety and worry seem to occupy the air we breathe, how we walk, who dwells in us, and on what we focus may be exactly the questions we need to explore.
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
