Romans 7 Bible Reading and Daily Devotionals

(Has God spoken to you lately if not click to listen to God's teaching?)

Max Lucado Daily: Meet the Savior

If you took a name at random out of the phone book and asked me,“Max, how does Chester Whomever feel about adultery?”  I couldn’t answer.  I don’t know Chester Whomever.

But if you were to ask me, “Max how does Denalyn Lucado feel about adultery?” I wouldn’t even have to call her.  I know.  She’s my wife.  We have walked together long enough that I know what she thinks.

The same is true with God. Walk with Him long enough and you come to know His heart.  When you spend time with Him in His study, you see His compassion. When you welcome Him to enter the gateway of your soul, you’ll perceive His will.  To meet the Savior is to be set aflame. To discover the flame is to discover His will.  And to discover His will is to access a world like none you have ever seen.

from The Great House of God

Romans 7
New International Version (NIV)
Released From the Law, Bound to Christ

7 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

The Law and Sin

7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”[b] 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.

13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.

14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[d] a slave to the law of sin.

Our Daily Bread reading and devotion

Read: Deuteronomy 30:11-20

The Offer of Life or Death

11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. 12 It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 13 Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” 14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

No Fine Print

April 5, 2013 — by David C. McCasland

For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. —Deuteronomy 30:11

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Missy Sullivan noted that many user agreements, warranties, and disclaimers that come with products are nearly unreadable. Intentionally set in very small type, they actually discourage people from understanding them. Because of this, many people don’t read all the terms of contracts before signing them. A university professor of graphic communication pointed to a 32-page user agreement that came with his new smartphone, and said of the company, “They don’t want you to read it.”

In contrast, the Lord is always seeking to communicate with His people in clear and compelling ways, with no attempt to confuse or deceive. When Moses spoke to the Israelites just before they entered the Promised Land, he said, “For this commandment which I command you today is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. . . . I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deut. 30:11,19).

The Lord wants us to understand His plan and purpose clearly, so that we may love, obey, and cling to Him—for He is our “life and the length of [our] days” (v.20). That’s plain to see.

Father, we want to learn and experience more of who
You are in our relationship with You. Teach us so that
we will grow in our understanding of You and
Your plan for our lives.
There is no fine print in God’s communication with us.


My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers
April 5, 2013

His Agony and Our Access

Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples . . . . ’Stay here and watch with Me’ —Matthew 26:36, 38

We can never fully comprehend Christ’s agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, but at least we don’t have to misunderstand it. It is the agony of God and man in one Person, coming face to face with sin. We cannot learn about Gethsemane through personal experience. Gethsemane and Calvary represent something totally unique— they are the gateway into life for us.

It was not death on the cross that Jesus agonized over in Gethsemane. In fact, He stated very emphatically that He came with the purpose of dying. His concern here was that He might not get through this struggle as the Son of Man. He was confident of getting through it as the Son of God— Satan could not touch Him there. But Satan’s assault was that our Lord would come through for us on His own solely as the Son of Man. If Jesus had done that, He could not have been our Savior (see Hebrews 9:11-15). Read the record of His agony in Gethsemane in light of His earlier wilderness temptation— “. . . the devil . . . departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). In Gethsemane, Satan came back and was overthrown again. Satan’s final assault against our Lord as the Son of Man was in Gethsemane.

The agony in Gethsemane was the agony of the Son of God in fulfilling His destiny as the Savior of the world. The veil is pulled back here to reveal all that it cost Him to make it possible for us to become sons of God. His agony was the basis for the simplicity of our salvation. The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God.


A Word with You, by Ron Hutchcraft

Not Just When There's Trouble - #6845

Friday, April 5, 2013

One of the most dramatic scientific advances in my lifetime has been those amazing space shuttle flights. Apparently they're behind us now, but man, they sure did make aeronautical and science and all kinds of history. We got to hear space news on a pretty regular basis and watching those dramatic launches. We'd hear conversations from space. We still do from the Space Station. You know, you could hear the familiar sound of the conversation between the NASA Mission Control Center and those astronauts up there. The space day would begin with a wake up song from Houston. They'd play something that would say, "Good morning!" Then they would communicate back and forth all day long. Of course, they were in constant communication. See, when you're living in an environment where so much could go wrong; it's real important to do that.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Not Just When There's Trouble."

Our word for today from the Word of God - Isaiah chapter 30. I'll begin at verse 1, "'Woe to the obstinate children', declares the Lord." Who are those? "Those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin; who go down to Egypt without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh's protection, to Egypt's shade for refuge. But Pharaoh's protection will be to your shame. Everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace."

This is a description of God's people off course; they're off on their own. They've made some plans, they've made some alliances, they've asked for some help. But it's only going to lead to shame and disgrace. Why are they off course? Well, he said they planned but "not by my Spirit." They've gone ahead "without consulting me."

Imagine if our astronauts had only communicated with Mission Control at launch time, and then as soon as they were safely up, they went off and did what they pleased; no input all day from the data that they have at Mission Control? Well, that would be dumb!

And then the only other time they would contact Mission Control was when a crisis developed. I can just imagine Houston coming back and saying, "If you'd been in touch with us all along, there might not have been a crisis." Or, "We could have helped you correct it when it was small."

I've done that so many times in my relationship with Mission Control-I mean my Heavenly Father. Have you? We have a good time talking when we're launching something. As the day begins, I spend my time with the Lord, and we talk through the issues of that day. And then, of course, I run to Him when trouble develops. But I neglect the points in between. I tend to neglect that regular communication throughout the non-crisis details of the day to just stop for a moment and say, "Which one, Lord? Which way should I go on this? Who's the right person? What's the best way to answer this? What's the best way to solve this?"

Listen to those words; they're haunting words. God says, "You've proceeded without consulting me. You're carrying out plans that are not mine." We don't mean to. It just happens because we do not stay in close, all day communication when those little choices are being made that make the big choices. Many crises are the result of everyday decisions we make without consulting our Commander.

We need to consciously practice what Jesus calls "abiding in Him." Not just visiting. Abiding in Him! Like those astronauts, we need to stay in constant contact with Mission Control.