Daily Devotion – August 20, 2020 – Dr. Pat Taylor Ellison
Romans 12:1-8
12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God–what is good and acceptable and perfect.
12:3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
12:4 For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function,
12:5 so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.
12:6 We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith;
12:7 ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching;
12:8 the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
This passage puts life into an order that will keep us ever reconciled to God our Creator and to one another. If we could do what these verses suggest, we would never be out of alignment with anything that actually counts.
1. Our bodies are a living sacrifice to God – we are walking around every day helping to be a part of God’s Kingdom on Earth
2. We do this by keeping ever in the front of our minds the big picture of God’s creation and God’s calling for the creation, of which we are a mere part
3. We are not meant to do everything and not even perfectly; we are meant to use our particular gifts in the particular ways God is calling us to use them as best we can
4. We are to be on the lookout for other persons, also called to use their particular gifts, so that we can encourage and uplift them, not compete with them or bring them down
If we as faithful people kept in mind every single day that we are gifted creatures, even children, of God, who have been given a vocation to use some God-given gifts for the glory of God’s Kingdom, and that we can also see those gifts in other fellow creatures and uplift and encourage them to do what they are gifted for, as fellow workers with us in the Reign of God, how easy it would be to live our lives in the world, no matter what mess we might find all around us.
We have jobs, callings from the Creator. So does everyone else. Our brotherhood and sisterhood is lived out in this shared status as creatures and children of God, with definite gifts and talents to be used to serve God and the neighbor.
It’s so easy to get distracted from this truth. But our job is literally to not get distracted. Be who God calls you to be, and help the next person to be that as well.
Gracious God, Thank you for loving us. Thank you for giving us status as your children. Help us to rediscover our calling and our gifts, and encourage the calling and gifts of others. Amen.
