For Reading and Meditation:      Romans 7:14-8:4Yesterday we ended by saying that God can impart purity as well as impute it, and He then helps us apply it in our daily life and experience. Permit me to share my own personal experience in this connection, not as a model for you to follow, but simply to illustrate how God revealed Himself to me. Following my conversion in my mid-teens, friends assured me that I ought to ask God to baptise me in His Holy Spirit. This, they told me, would give me the power I needed to become an effective witness for Him. I asked God to do this - and in a remarkable encounter with Him, I found the power I sought. But although this experience transformed me overnight from a shy, timid follower of Christ into a fearless witness for Him, I still felt deeply troubled by sinful forces. I fought hard with such things as lust and sensuality until one night, worn down by the inner conflict, I got down on my knees and prayed: "Lord, reach deep inside me and make me truly clean." Again, something wonderful took place - not so much an invasion of power as an invasion of purity. It did not result, I found, in placing me beyond the possibility of a carnal thought, a stab of pride, a trace of envy, but it meant that from that moment to this, I have been more conscious of the Holy Spirit's presence than I have been of sin's presence. Evil was not eradicated in me, as some proponents of imparted holiness believe, but I found that the eagerness for it had gone, and the hunger for it was no longer a clamour. Now, fifty years later, I never cease to thank God for His Spirit's cooling and cleansing touch. My Father and my God, although I realise I have to walk my own personal path to holiness and inner cleansing, help me to know at last that same cooling, cleansing touch in the depths of my heart. I ask this for Your own dear Name's sake. Amen.<div class="tl-lightgrey mt20 pt20 flexbox-row-wrap jc-around"><div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">AdditionalVerses</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>Galatians 5:1-26</li><li>Matthew 5:29</li><li>Romans 6:6</li><li>Romans 13:14</li></ul></div>

<div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">Questions to Consider</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>How did Paul exhort the Galatians?</li><li>How drastically did Jesus put it?</li></ul></div></div>

Let a little light into your soul every day with this wonderful devotional from English pastor Selwyn Hughes.

Every Day Light with Selwyn Hughes

"' through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death." (8:2)

For Reading and Meditation:      Romans 13:7-14We continue considering on the fact that the Beatitudes are the finest prescription for mental and spiritual health that has ever been given. It is helpful to keep in mind at this stage in our meditations that the Beatitudes are be-attitudes, not do-attitudes; the doing comes out of the being. Some ministers and commentators refer to them as "the beautiful attitudes" - a description I find greatly appealing. Our attitudes have a tremendous and powerful influence upon every part of our being - physical as well as emotional. A missionary from the Philippines tells how, during the war, he and his wife were ordered into prison camps by the Japanese, and were instructed that they could take with them all they could carry in their suitcases and no more. His wife, weighing just over 100 pounds, and not at all strong, carried a load of 200 pounds, mostly tinned food, a distance of five miles - a load neither of them could even lift after they arrived. Mannheim, a famous scientist, says that we normally use about one-eighth of our physical reserves, and that these reserves are only called upon when we employ the right attitudes. If our attitudes can help tap hidden physical reserves, then think of what our experience can be if we adopt the "beautiful attitudes" which our Lord expounds for us in His Sermon on the Mount. We can maximise our potential and multiply our effectiveness, not only in the physical area of our being, but in our mental and emotional areas also. Many doctors and scientists agree that it is not our arteries but our attitudes which have the biggest say in our personal well-being. Loving heavenly Father, help me to do as Your Word commands and "clothe myself with the Lord Jesus Christ". Show me how to have His attitudes - the "beautiful attitudes" - so that I might live fully and abundantly. Amen.<div class="tl-lightgrey mt20 pt20 flexbox-row-wrap jc-around"><div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">AdditionalVerses</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>1 Peter 2:21</li><li>Matthew 11:29</li><li>John 13:15</li><li>Hebrews 12:2</li></ul></div>

<div><div class="fs-17 fg-mustard bold center-it">Questions to Consider</div><ul style="margin-top:0px"><li>What did Jesus do besides expounding these attitudes?</li><li>How should our lives be?</li></ul></div></div>

"Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ '" (v. 14)

Romans 13:8-14Christian teachings deal with life. To begin with, here is a word about debt-paying. "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another." We should never fail to pay a debt when it falls due. The person to whom we owe it expects the money at that time, and bases his own engagements upon the receiving of it. If we do not pay him, he in turn is left unable to pay another to whom he is indebted, and who can tell how many other people, in turn, will be disappointed, and perhaps left in embarrassment, because of our failure to pay our debt? Then, it is a bad habit for anyone to form - allowing debts to go unpaid. Like other habits, too, it grows easily, and soon becomes so fixed that a man thinks nothing of being in debt.There is a kind of indebtedness, however, which none of us can help - the debt of love. We never can get it paid off. Of course, we are to pay it as fast as it falls due. But even when we do this we cannot get out of love's debt. At the close of a day we may feel that we have met all our obligations of love to all about us - family, friends, neighbors. Yet, when we arise next morning, we find all the debts of yesterday facing us again, not one of them diminished. We can do nothing but begin to pay them off again, toiling the whole day to do it.Love includes all other duties. "He who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law." All the other commandments are mere fragments of the law of love. All the duties which we owe to others, really gather themselves in concentration into the one golden duty of love. He who loves - truly obeys all the commandments. This Paul illustrates in the following verse. "The commandments: "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."Love never does another any harm. "Love does no harm to its neighbor." Love always thinks of other people's good. Whatever, therefore, injures another in any way - is a violation of love's duty. What about the man who tempts a boy to drink and puts the first glass of alcohol into his hand? Has he wrought no harm on his neighbor? Suppose that a few years hence this boy has become a drunkard - whose is the guilt of having started him in his course of ruin? What about the saloon-keepers, who, to make money, deal out intoxicating drinks to the men - young and old, weak and strong? Think of the ruin wrought in lives, in homes? Is there any good to counterbalance the evil? Are any homes, brightened, sweetened, made happier, better, holier, truer - by the saloon? Are any lives made purer, cleaner, more earnest, more beautiful, nobler, more godlike - by the saloon?There is a call here to awake. "It is time for you to awake out of sleep." The picture suggested is of one still asleep when the sun is high in the heavens. There is a great pressure of duty - but the man sleeps, indifferent to all calls. During the day we have duties, which would crowd every moment if we were doing them all. But here are men sleeping away half their day, leaving their work untouched.The man who never thinks of eternity is asleep; yet he may be very busy in worldly things, a "wide-awake man," his neighbors may call him ambitious, alert, diligent, successful - but if he does not think of God and the eternal world, he is asleep. The world is full of such people, and we ought to try to wake them up before it is too late.Night covers many deeds of sin and shame. When day comes, wrongdoings hangs its head. We are living in the light and we should be ashamed to continue doing the things of darkness. Here again we touch the saloon business. Surely it is among the "works of darkness." Even saloon keepers practically admit this, for who ever saw a saloon open to the daylight and to all eyes, as other kinds of business are? Its windows are made dim or opaque, and its doors are made to shut quickly after a man enters. No one passing outside can see what is going on inside. This itself is a confession, which puts a question on the business. It all were open to the public, as a dry goods store, men would be ashamed to go in.In the thirteenth verse we come again upon intemperance, "Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy." Whatever anyone may say about the Bible's position on the question of wines, there is not a shadow of doubt where it stands concerning drunkenness. It puts it down among the most debasing of sins, the most degrading, the most ruinous of all vices. Can there be anything more debasing of a man with an immortal nature - than to get drunk! Of course, no one intends to get drunk when he begins to drink. But the story is familiar to need writing out - of the end of nine cases out of ten of moderate drinking. The only absolute safety is total abstinence ."Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature." The only true way to get rid of the wrong things in our life - is to put on Christ. Being good merely by not being bad, is not enough. There is a striking parable of an expelled evil spirit. He went out of the man under some pressure, and wandered, desolate and restless, through deserts until, discontent not to be injuring someone, he wandered back to his old place and found the man in whom he had dwelt. He found his old house swept and garnished - but empty yet, and gathering up some other demons worse than himself, he reentered the unoccupied house, and the last state of that man was worse than the first. It is not enough to put out the demon; we must also admit the Christ into our heart's house. Emptiness is always a condition of peril.

A unique type of devotional from the writings of James Russell Miller, published between 1908 and 1913.

Devotional Hours Within the Bible

Romans 13:8-14

The Law of Love

Sing aloud to God our strength; make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob. Raise a song and strike the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the lute. § He has put a new song in my mouth—praise to our God; many will see it and fear, and will trust in the Lord. Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. § The joy of the Lord is your strength. Paul … thanked God and took courage. Knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.

Daily Light on the Daily Path or Daily Light is a Christian daily devotional scripture reading published by Bagster & Sons about 1875. It has been reprinted continually since then. It consists of brief groupings of scripture passages which speak to prominent Biblical themes—two themes (morning and evening) for each day of the year. It appends no commentary, but simply allows scripture to speak for itself.

Morning Daily Light

 Sing to the Lord a new song. 

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. § That I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith. § The righteousness of God [is] through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. § I will go in the strength of the Lord God; I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only. You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light … Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them … All things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says: “Awake, you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” See then that you walk circumspectly.

Evening Daily Light

 Let us put on the armor of light. 

<blockquote>The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs" (<a id="verse_1632877497454724" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Romans/8/16">Rom. 8:16</a>; <a id="verse_1632877497973914298" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Romans/8/17">17</a>).</blockquote>It is the Holy Spirit alone who can draw us from the flesh and its earthly environment. He does it in the practical sense by manifesting to our hearts, via the Word of God, the risen Lord Jesus Christ in our heavenly environment. "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts" (<a id="verse_1632877497304322" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Romans/13/14">Rom. 13:14</a>)."When the Lord Jesus' love is before you, you find this love is drawing you from darkness to light. He begins by showing His desire for your spiritual advancement, and not by advancing you in earthly position."It is beautiful to see that the work of true love is to set aside darkness, or whatever would interfere with fellowship; and therefore it is not esteemed as it ought to be, because we are looking for something on the earth, and the tendency is to judge of His love by earthly gifts or favors down here.""We have died with the Lord Jesus out of our old Adam position: our old man was crucified with Him. The flesh is in us still indeed, but in us a foreign thing; we are not in it before God, nor identified with it in any wise, but with Him in whom it was never found. We are in Him, as He is and where He is."Can we say quite confidently, each for himself, Yes, we are identified with Him who represents us there before the eye of our Father - as He is, in whom no spot was ever found nor can be, but perfectness after God's own heart wholly'?"That is to be in Christ - a new creature. Our rule is, to walk in Him, as being what we really are - heavenly, citizens of heaven, pilgrims and strangers upon earth." -F.W.G."Heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ - if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together" (<a id="verse_1632877497978481" href="https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Romans/8/17">Rom. 8:17</a>).

A 365 day devotional that will help you in your Christian growth and walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.  This devotional is a collection of quotes from some of the best authors in the realm of Christian growth that has been organized by Miles J Stanford.  This devotional study is divided into 12 sections each containing 31 daily portions.

None but the Hungry Heart

 Mansion There - Mission Here 

14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ,<cr>1</cr> and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.<ft>1</ft><cr>2</cr>

Romans 13:14

 14 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ,   and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.   

From Wikipedia: 

The New International Version (NIV) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1978 by Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society). The NIV was published to meet the need for a modern translation done by Bible scholars using the earliest, highest quality manuscripts available. Of equal importance was that the Bible be expressed in broadly understood modern English.

The NIV is published by Zondervan in the United States and Hodder & Stoughton in the UK. The NIV was updated in 1984 and 2011 and has become one of the most popular and best-selling modern translations.

OT: Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia; additional sources;
NT: UBS Greek New Testament; Novum Testamentum Graece; additional sources;

New International Version

 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ,  and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. 

Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.

 Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ,   and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.   

Bible Verse of the Day

June 15, 2023

Romans 13:14 NIV

Verse by Verse Bible Study

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