Agape Devotions

Read: Romans 7.7-8.39 Verses chosen for reflection: Romans 7:24-8:4 "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."  Reflect Paul's letter to the Romans is one of his greatest reflection on the life of the Christian. How does a Christian live the new life after being saved? Much of Romans attempt to answer such a simple but prof...

READ: Rom.6:1 to 7:6 REFLECT : Verses 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. All of those verses repeat the same idea. Do you see that common thread? It is the fact that Paul's readers have, in some sense, died. They have died! How is that possible? It's possible because Paul is not talking about their physical deaths. The only physical death in Rom.6 is Jesus' death. But through that death, Paul's readers have died spiritually, by grace, through faith. Why is that important to point out? Because the sobering reality of their dying with Christ is used by Paul to bring to them to the glorious reality that they have also been, and will be, raised up with Christ because of His resurrection. In the present, in the 'right now', this reality of the resurrection is called, verse 4, “newness of life”. Doesn't that sound good?  Paul's whole goal in these verses is to get his readers to both recognize and embrace this “newness of life” that Jesus has made possible through His resu...

READ : Romans 5:12-21 Verses chosen for meditation: Romans 5:19-21 19  For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.  20  Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,  21  so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. REFLECT Today, we tackle some uncomfortable truths, but still truths nonetheless. In this section, Paul contrasts the work of Adam, the first human and Christ’s work on the cross. We first look at the relationship between sin and death in Romans 5:12. Sin entered the world through one man’s (Adam) disobedience. Eve was involved but Paul was holding Adam responsible, and rightly so. Eve was deceived when she sinned, but Adam sinned with full knowledge of God’s command. As a res...

READ : Romans 4:1- 5:11. Verses chosen for meditation: Romans 4:1-3. 4 What then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?  2  For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.  3  For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”   REFLECT Explaining God’s promised blessing of “credited righteousness by faith”, Paul gave two illustrations in this chapter 4. First, he takes us back to the experience of Abraham. He shows that Abraham was not justified by works. Otherwise, he would have something to boast about, v.2. Rather in verse 3, Paul quoted Genesis 15:6. Note that Abraham is by no means the only man who has faith, but he is pre-eminently qualified as a man of faith. He was credited righteousness by faith. This righteousness was unearned through any merits or good works. It came as a gift to Abraham throu...

Read Romans 3 Verses chosen for meditation: Romans 3: 9 - 11, 18 - 20, 22 - 31 ESV: 9 What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin,10 as it is written: "None is righteous, no, not one; 11 no one understands; no one seeks for God. 18 "There is no fear of God before their eyes.” 19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by fa...

  TEXT TO REFLECT ON He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality. ROMANS 2:6-11 REFLECT In the verses before this paragraph, Paul described how debased humanity had become: whether they were Jews or Gentiles. Man(kind) had suppressed the truth (v18), they had become futile in their thinking and their foolish minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they had become fools (v21 & 22). By suppressing the truth and having their minds darkened, they had turned values upside down: good was now bad and bad good, and folly was wisd...

Catch up on your readings day.  Our next book will be the book of Romans. If you are looking for an introduction to the book, following are resources: https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/introduction-to-romans/ https://bibleproject.com/guides/book-of-romans/

Catch up on your readings day.  Our next book will be the book of Romans. If you are looking for an introduction to the book, following are resources: https://www.esv.org/resources/esv-global-study-bible/introduction-to-romans/ https://bibleproject.com/guides/book-of-romans/

READ : Acts 28:17-31 Verses chosen for meditation: Acts 28:30-31 30  He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him,  31  proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. REFLECT Paul finally made his way to Rome and what a journey it’s been! It seemed the universe conspired to obstruct his inevitable arrival. He intended to proceed to Rome directly from Jerusalem. Instead, he got arrested, endured endless trials, got imprisoned in Caesarea, faced assassination plots, survived a shipwreck, and shook off a poisonous snake bite! When the words came from Jesus himself, saying he must testify in Rome, there was no doubt in Paul’s mind he would end up here. But could he have predicted the state at which he arrived: not as a respected preacher, but as a prisoner for crimes he did not commit. The reputation he gained on the voyage (Acts ...

Read Acts 27:1-28:16 Selected verses for devotion - Acts 27:21-32 21 Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss. 22 Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. 23 For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship, 24 and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ 25 So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. 26 But we must run aground on some island.” 27 When the fourteenth night had come, as we were being driven across the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors suspected that they were nearing land. 28 So they took a sounding and found twenty fathoms. A little farther on they took a sounding again and found f...

Read Acts 25 and 26 Read through both chapters and as you read, watch the drama of a court proceeding unfold. Listen to the words of the accusers, the trial judges and the man in question. Observe their individual attitude and stance. Reflect Have you ever been accused before? How did you approach or settle the matter? Did you seize the opportunity that was given to speak up for the gospel? Did you see the hand of God orchestrating the whole situation, overruling the opinions and decisions of the accusers and judges? Relate I'm not sure about you, but I've been accused before. Once by a senior fellow colleague from a different department and another by a disgruntled next - of - kin. The irony couldn't be more stark. On both of the occasions, I was actually trying to help. But in spite of that, I was slammed. The set of circumstances seems almost similar to Paul's though the magnitude differs by a mile. In my two cases, the intent was clear. It was to malign and inflict ...

  TEXT TO REFLECT When it was day, the Jews made a plot and bound themselves by an oath neither to eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. There were more than forty who made this conspiracy. They went to the chief priests and elders and said, “We have strictly bound ourselves by an oath to taste no food till we have killed Paul. Now therefore you, along with the council, give notice to the tribune to bring him down to you, as though you were going to determine his case more exactly. And we are ready to kill him before he comes near.” ACTS 23:12-15 REFLECT The vow that the Jews in this passage had made was like a suicide pact. They were in effect saying, “Either we kill Paul, or we will starve ourselves to death!” But what had inspired such zeal, or such hatred, that a group of sincere, God-honouring Jews would bind themselves to such a vow?  It all began when Paul was seen in the Temple in the company of an Ephesian Gentile. The Jews who had seen him there were from Asia. Th...