What is intrinsic to the Christian life? Romans 12 is a great chapter in the Bible on how to live the Christian life. We are challenged to make our lives living sacrifices to God and to not be squeezed into the world’s mold. We are entreated to have our minds renewed and to test and discern what the good, acceptable and perfect will of God is. Then Paul gets real practical and fleshes out how we are to do these things. He shares that it is by the grace given to him that he speaks these exhortations. “The grace” is so important. It is God’s gift, pleasure, work and will that Paul can and does speak with authority. As Christians, we need this grace and God provides it.
But when God works, He receives opposition from the flesh, the world and the devil. Christians can get haughty by doing the work of God. We are tempted to think it is our own doing that we experience such success and blessing. So Paul exhorts, “… not to think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.” How ought we think of ourselves? What is this sober judgment that is not hyped up on pride or inebriated with self absorbed narcissism? We need to see ourselves as created by God, gifted by God, and placed into a body by God. God made us and that means we are not autonomous but have a purpose. God gifted us therefore we are not self-sufficient but useful. God placed us into a body of believers and so we are not solitary but communal. Right thinking places us as God’s work.
Paul goes on to charge believers to use the gifts that he has graced them with. If you got it use it! Prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leadership, and mercy are to be exercised within the body. It is like saying for the heart to beat, the lungs to breathe, the stomach to digest and the eyes to see and so on. Do what you were created, called and gifted to do. How easily we can be distracted from our original intent. We use our time, energy, money and desires toward things that are not of eternal purposes. We can be sideswiped into thinking we are not necessary or needed. We can also be deluded into thinking our own personal plans are more important the will of God.
Antioch was a case study of the working out of these gifts. Acts 11:19-30 records the unnamed Christians, Barnabas, Paul, and Agabus doing what God created, called and gifted them to do. How important it was that the unnamed Christians reached out to the gentiles and that Barnabus was there to welcome and disciple them? How amazing was the need for Paul to teach and lead this growing multitude of saints? How timely was the prophesy from Agabus and the provision of the giving saints to the believers in Judea? This is a model of saints using their gifts in faith for the building up of the body of Christ to the glory of God.
What intrinsically is a Christian? A Christian is created by God, gifted by God and part of the body of Christ. What does that look like in personal behavior and responsibility? Paul lists directives to the employment of these gifts in daily life and relationship. Romans 12:9-21states:
Let love be genuine.
Abhor what is evil;
hold fast to what is good.
Love one another with brotherly affection.
Outdo one another in showing honor.
Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
Rejoice in hope,
be patient in tribulation,
be constant in prayer.
Contribute to the needs of the saints
and seek to show hospitality.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Live in harmony with one another.
Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.
Never be wise in your own sight.
Repay no one evil for evil,
but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.
If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (ESV)
