Sunday, February 12, 2023

Romans 13:14 -- On Putting on Christ

"But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof."
Romans 13:14


A couple of verses before this it asks us to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, which is cool and symbolic. This verse is I think restating and clarifying that. The armor of light is taking on Christ, bearing his name as armor and looking to him for protection. Works of darkness are when we schedule in time *away* from God for physical desires rather than spiritual ones.

I don't think that means that we shouldn't have toilets in our houses, or that we shouldn't see the doctor/dentist etc... those are physical needs that we do need to schedule into our lives, but when it is something that can detract from our devotion and get in the way of it, we need to avoid scheduling in those things. For me, I notice that there are a lot of seemingly normal things that drive away the spirit and distract me from thinking good thoughts. Definitely not perfect at avoiding those things, but I think that is what God means... avoiding not just obviously bad things like murder, theft, adultery, etc., but also things that get us into a mental state where God is absent, where we're indulging our own desires and have to fight ourselves to get back into a place where we feel like praying... the risk being that every time we walk away from God to take time for whatever else is blocking him out, it is harder to come back, and easier to stay in a state where we can't hear him, normalizing the absence of God in our lives rather than his presence.

Today, let's work on normalizing the presence of God in our lives rather than the absence. Let's put on God's light and not take it off for other things.

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