Living in the Spirit
June 30, 2023
Scripture Reading:
Romans 6:12-23
Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. –Romans 6:12-14
This scripture reminded me of the political debate in Oklahoma regarding whether we should have a requirement to hang a copy of the Ten Commandments in each school classroom in Oklahoma. I strongly support the separation of church and state, but I also fear we make an idol out of the Ten Commandments by demanding that they be displayed rather than dedicating our lives to following them. Later scriptures quoted below deal with this issue:
Jeremiah 31:33: But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
2 Corinthians 3:3: and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
God did not create the Ten Commandments for us to admire or merely read. They were created to show us how we are to live. Reading through them, I think we would realize how much we as individuals and our society, in general, ignore them.
We may no longer carve graven images; our idols are greed and lust for power. Thou shall not kill is lost on children who are scared to go to schools where they fear becoming victims of mass shootings. Our sexual mores are out of touch with what is right as we castigate children with gender dysphoria driving some to suicide for simply existing while turning a blind eye to the sexual behavior of the rest of the population, including politicians and the clergy. Cheating on income tax is stealing from the government. Taking advantage of people and lying is becoming an art in business and in politics.
Prayer: Lord, open our hearts to your teachings on being your children in a challenging world. Amen.
All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.