Romans 12 Part 1

In this episode of the Bible Gal podcast, we jump into Romans chapter 12 and dive into and study the first 10 verses of what Paul has to say to us. 

In this episode we cover: 

1. Giving up ourselves to live for Christ
2. Not getting caught in the patterns of the world
3. Evaluating our heart & faith
4. Taking the gift God gave us seriously
5. Not pretending to be loving, but really love
6. Having genuine affection for others

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Bumble Gumma Pump House and Amigum Ember. I'm just a certain one woman, empowering women to step into their own finger for the Lord mentality. I'm encouraging us to live in our faith, to grow, and to believe in the calling that come past for us. My vision is to help women break the chains of their past, of inner struggles, and fears to create new chapters that only our father can write for us. I'm on a mission and passion to empower you and all the women out there. This is gonna be your new favorite podcast for daily devotionals and Bible study chats.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Hey guys, welcome to episode 16 of the podcast. Um today we are going to be right in the Bible. We're gonna be chunking up a portion um of Romans chapter 12. Um so we're gonna have two parts to this because it's a lot in Romans 12. It's just a very dense chapter, but it's a really good one. So um we're gonna do the first 10 verses in this episode, and then we'll do a part two of verses 11 through 21 next week, or next episode, I should say. Um, but before we get started, I would love to start in prayer. Dear Father, I just ask that uh you open all of our hearts and all of our minds to receive your word, to receive your message, your Holy Spirit, and your daily bread today. Uh we are so thankful for this day that we have, for have breath in our lungs, Father, just to have a day, a new day, Father. You're just so holy and so wonderful, so amazing. Um, and I just pray over this message that this message um is spoken through you, um, and that the words that need to be said are said, and it touches the people um who need to be touched. Amen. All right. So with that being said, I'm gonna just jump right on in um with Romans chapter 12, verse 1. Um, I'm gonna read it uh verse by verse and we're gonna chunk it up. So verse 1 says, Um, I'm gonna do my best not to yawn. I um only had about five hours of sleep um uh broken up, which means pumping. So bear with me. Um so it says, Therefore, brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your true worship. So Paul is instructing us, he's begging us, he's honestly saying, he's pleading us, right? He literally says, I plead with you, um, to give up our body as a living sacrifice. Obviously, that doesn't mean to lay your body down on an altar or to give up your life in a physical sense, but it means to give up your will, to give up the things that you wanted to do in life. Um, you know, to maybe you wake up um today and you're like, oh well, you know, after work I'm gonna go for a walk and um gonna paint my nails and whatever, right? That you come up with. I don't know. Um, but instead of doing your will of what you wanted to do, you wake up and you say, you know what, I'm gonna do God's will. You wake up in the morning, you say, you know what, God, what is your will for me today? What is what do you want me to do today? Um and giving up what you you know, giving up your desires and your wants for his will and to live for him. Um, you know, giving everything up for him and saying, you know what, God, here I am. Here I am. Use me. I will go where you want me to go. I will do what you want me to do. I will not live for myself. You know, I'm not gonna just do things every day that pleasure me anymore. Obviously, you know, we still we still do things like go for a walk and paint our nails and do things that we enjoy doing, but you know, it's it's saying, you know, overall I'm living for you, I'm doing your will. You know, even when I don't want to, even when there's places or that you want me to go or people that you want me to talk to that I'm not comfortable with, or that you know I'm scared to, you know, I'm gonna do it anyway. I'm gonna make room to do whatever you want me to do in my life. Um, I have s been in a handful of predicaments where I'm like, I don't really want to do that, God, but I'll do it. But you know, uh I don't, you know, it it let your will be done, not mine. Um there are people that he had wanted me to bring to Christ uh or talk to, things he wanted me to do, um, that I would were big decisions, you know, such as offering somebody to move in, um, my home with my with my new family, that's a lot. But I was like, you know what, Lord, let your let your will be done. And if that's what you want me to do, and that's how you want me to reach that person, then let it be. Um But then Paul continues to say in verse 2, he says, Don't copy the behavior and the customs of this world, but let God transform you into a person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. So now Paul is getting at don't conform to the patterns of the world. But don't conform to the things that the world follows, you know. Love yourself, you know, getting drunk with your friends on a Friday and Saturday night, saying it's okay, you know, God's gonna give me grace, and using that as an excuse to sin. Um oh well, you know, I'm gonna treat them that way. I'm gonna treat them like this because that's how they treated me. I'm gonna do to them what they did to me. Um, you know, being prideful, you know, boasting your success um just for clout, right? You know, wanting that worldly life, like a cary broadsh Bradshaw life is such a worldly view to think of, you know, in the in the sex in the city. You know, she's a single um woman, she's not married, she doesn't have kids, she has a nice, you know, career, big girl job where she gets to work when she wants, and she has all the designer clothes and all the designer shoes, and she frolics around New York and lives her best life, right? And that's such a worldly view on a success for a woman. And so it's saying don't conform to that, don't sit there and conform to letting that be your goal in life, letting you know that be your will. Um, you know, don't conform to gossiping when other people are gossiping, you know, all the things that um are worldly. Um Paul tells us not to get caught up in these things, you know, because it's it's definitely a temptation to and and easy to at times, but he says, get close to God and allow him to change the way we think, to change the way we speak, to change the way we act. We have to allow God to do that. Um, and we have to allow God in our lives to change the way we think and act and speak because we have to submit to him. We have to say, you know what, God, you know, whatever you want for my life, let it be. You know, you have to submit, you know, your timing, Father, and your will, and you have to get in his word, you know, and you have to continue to sit in silence to hear from him and to pray with him every morning. You wake up before any other thoughts come to mind, before you pick up your phone and scroll on social media, you get up, you say good morning, you you pray, you get in the word, you get in his presence before the devil can get in your brain, right? And you know, that means when you're convicted by something that you're doing wrong, you can't get defensive and shut down. But we have to seek it as an opportunity to shed off that worldly behavior so that we can become more like Jesus. And then in verse three, um, he continues to say, Because of the privilege and the authority that God has given me, I give each one of you this warning. Don't think you're better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measure yourselves by the faith that God has given us. He says, Don't ever think you're better than somebody else. You know, don't be prideful because who are we to say, oh well, you know, and how often do we do things like this? Oh, well, you know, at least I didn't do that, you know, well, at least I don't do this, or you know, maybe you you try to compare your sins, like yours are less than theirs, or yours are better in in a sense than theirs, right? And that's that's wrong. At the end of the day, a sin is a sin, and it's it's all an equal sin. And so who are we to judge or you know, think that we're better than somebody because you know, our sin was that we uh cuss somebody out at road rage, and that's better than you know, beating somebody up, and we think that that might be a lesser of a sin. And so we're like, oh well, I'm better than that person because I was less, and right, and so like we sh we should not be comparing it to be prideful in our faith. We need to say, you know, that we need to humble ourselves, and so instead of saying, like, oh, well, at least I'm not cussing somebody else out, like, oh, at least I didn't cuss her out like so-and-so does, you know, because yeah, you might not be doing that, but what you are doing is gossiping about that person, you know, putting that person down by by thinking that you're better than them because they cussed and you didn't, right? Because at the end of the day, like I said, like we're so all equally wrong and messed up in our sins, then you know, so if anything, you're being more messed up by gossiping about that person who did cuss than just being the person who cussed, right? Because we try to pretend that we're better than other people, but we all have our own sins and we all fall short, we all have our baggage, we are all undeserving, but yet God still loves us and Jesus still died on the cross for all of us. I say that all the time. Jesus didn't die on the cross for some of us, he didn't die on the cross for the ones he thought was worthy. No, he died for all of us because he all thought we were deserving and you know, to be forgiven. And so when you're convicted, Paul says you have to measure yourselves by faith. You have to look at where you need to get rid of the ugly patterns. You have to ask God to seek your heart to take out the ugliness, right? And then he goes on to say, and I'm gonna read um verse four through eight. He says, Just as our bodies have many parts, and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ's body. We are many parts of one body. We all belong to each other. In this grace, God has given us difficult gifts for doing certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out with as much faith as God has given you. If your gift is serving others, then serve them well. If you are a teacher, teach them well. If your gift is to encourage others, be encouraging. If your gift is giving, give generously. If God has given you leadership ability, take the responsibility seriously. And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. So he says here we each have our own gifts. And if you know your gift, great, do that with all your heart. Take it seriously, don't throw it around, don't take it lightly, don't just do it on a good day, do it all the time, right? Because and and he speaks about in the first verses how every body part has a different function, but all the body parts work together for the same function, okay? That's his analogy here, right? Like the lungs do something different than the kidneys, you know, than something different than your heart, right? They all have a different function, but at the end of the day, they all function together to keep you alive, they all function together, you know, so you keep breathing. So that's what he's saying here, is like we all might have different gifts, we all might have different um, you know, um we all might have different gifts. I don't I don't know what other word I was gonna use. Um, but at the end of the day, our job is together is to spread the light, to spread the love, and to bring people to Jesus, right? And um this is something that we should be picking up our cross and walking with every day. Your heart doesn't only work when it wants to, or else you'd be dead. Your lung doesn't work just when it wants to, your lungs work every day, right? It does its gift every single day. We should be doing our gift every single day. If you don't know your gift, then I really do encourage you to spend more time in these verses. Romans 12, verse 4 through 8. Ask God to reveal them to you. It might honestly be obvious after you know listening to those verses. Um, and or you might have to ask God, but you know, don't pass up the opportunity to discover what it is because um it's it's a beautiful thing. But I also want to say don't get caught up in taking uh any online quiz or uh tests or just any influencer. Absolutely, I'm I'm not discrediting all of them. Yes, absolutely there are ones that are out there that are right that are pure, um, but there also are ones out there that aren't. Um so I really just suggest that you do your research first. Um, or the best way to do it is honestly the way I always go, go to the horse's mouth, go to God, ask him personally, go to his word. You always know that that answer will be true. Um, and you don't have to, in my opinion, you don't have to do the research, you know, on the back end to see if it is. You just immediately know God is obviously not gonna lie to you, um, that he is pure in the heart. But um, yeah, so let me continue in verse 9. We're uh we got a couple more verses here. Verse 9 says, Don't pretend to love others. Really love them, hate what is wrong, and hold tightly to what is good. Oof. I was convicted of this myself because this means don't just say you love somebody because it's what God wants you to do, but really love them because you love God so much that you want to love that person. How many times do you is there somebody you don't like, but you know, now that you are walking in faith, you're like, well, I have to love them. And it's kind of like a you feel like it's a chore, like you're loving them because you feel like you have to, you know, or you kind of you try to convince yourself that you love them, but like really you still gossip about them, you still have negative thoughts about them, you still don't, you know, do everything in your power to help them, to pray for them, right? You still catch yourself not really acting loving. Um, and Paul, you know, warns us not to not to get caught in that, not to get caught in pretending, um, you know, and it's normal for us to have a hard time because we are human and we do fall short. But don't let this be your excuse of, oh, well, you know, I'm human, and that's just that. I've heard that so many times. Oh, well, I'm human, you know. Yeah, we are, but don't let that be like an excuse to why you were struggling to love somebody. My pastor once said, There are difficult people out there, but they're never difficult to love. And if you catch yourself having a hard time loving that person, talk to God, ask him truthfully, ask and pray to him and say, Father, please help me love Amber, help me love whoever, you're right. Help me love them the way that you love them, help me see them the way that you do. I don't want to struggle in my flesh, Lord. I but I want to love them like you do. I want to love like Jesus. Father, help me do that. I'll tell you, if you ask him to do his will, you ask him to help love people, he will. You will just wake up and you'll just start you'll just you'll just have the love of God in your heart. You ask him for that help, he will provide. Okay? So don't ever feel like you just that's it, you're just doomed to have a hard time loving that person. No, you can absolutely um overcome that. And then um in verse 10, he says, love each other with genuine affection and take delight in honoring each other. That really goes with nine. Um, but it he says, you know, this means love somebody out of the goodness of your heart. When you give something to somebody, don't do it for the clout, don't do it for the selfishness of it to make yourself feel good or a pat on the back. Don't even do it for a thank you. You know, of course we all want to hear a thank you or gratitude from somebody, but who cares at the end of the day if you really get the gratitude? Because that's not what you did it for. That shouldn't be what you did it for. Do it because you genuinely have love for that person. Do it because you really want to be genuine, you really want to help them from the trueness of your heart. You really want to, you know, show your affection and you really want to honor them, and you really want to help somebody in a time of need. You really want to be that Proverbs 31 woman and say, you know, I'm going to um what's it say? Give a helping hand to the poor and open my arms to the needy. And you want to do it lovingly because you do love God and you do love others. Right? If you give money to somebody, let me just make this clarification to everybody listening. Don't boast about it. Don't go tell everybody what you did because you're doing it for the wrong reasons, you're doing it for the clout, you want the pat on the back, you want the good job, Amber. Oh, that was nice of you. Like, you want that, right? And you're doing it wrong. Like if you feel the need to give money to somebody, you don't need to you don't you don't need to do it for the recognition. Just do it because they genuinely needed it. You don't need to be like, oh, I was the one who anonymously gave you that money. Like, well then why did you anonymously do it? Like at that point, you're just like you just wanted their recognition. Did you did you even do it because you really wanted to out of the heart? Or did you think you wanted to do it from your heart, but then it was really uh a disguise because you more so enjoyed the feeling of how it felt good. Right? We need to be honest with ourselves and and do things earnestly. You know, if you're giving to the homeless or you're giving to the poor or you're giving to the needy, the hurting, you know, whether it's a friend or a family member, whether it's money or clothes or cooking a warm meal or bringing medicine or helping them clean their home, or maybe it's just offering, you know, a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen, but do it because you love them. Because you want to help them, because you want to be the light in their life, and because you want to be like Jesus. Not for the worldly selfish reasons that you need to take a picture in front of the building and where you donated money to. Don't be Hollywood. Don't look for appreciation, don't look for recognition. Yes, it's nice when we get it, but those are just extra brownie points. Do it in private. Do it humbly because you wanted to do it from the bottom of your heart, or don't do it at all. I'm gonna wrap this up. It says, you know, in Psalms 139, um, verse 30 uh 23 and 24. Search me, O God, know my heart, test me and my thoughts, point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of an everlasting life. Do this regularly. Go to God. Say, God, clean out my heart. Show me where I'm wrong, show me where the cobwebs are. I'll tell you what, that is one prayer you can pray that God will 100% gladly and quickly show you the things that you need to get rid of. Absolutely. It's like a teenager who's like willing to clean their room, right? They're like, Oh mom, I'm gonna clean my room today. Can you help me show me where all the dirt is? You're gonna be like, absolutely, right? You're like, absolutely, let's get this room clean. That's how God feels when we ask him, you know, to get our hearts cleaned. He's like, absolutely, let's let's do this. You know, I'm gonna show you where you're gonna clean it up, right? And so um I encourage you to do that today. I encourage you to ask God where to clean your heart out today. Um so I'm gonna go ahead and end this there. Um, actually, and we will pick up next episode on the rest of the verses 11 through 21 next time. Um so with that being said, I'm gonna wrap it up. If you guys have any prayer requests, have any topics that you want me to cover, um, maybe you just want to connect with me or come to the Bible study that I have on Wednesday nights, um, whatever. You know, you can always send me an email and I would love to talk and to connect. And um, yeah, my email is your Bible gal at gmail.com. Thank you so much for listening, and I will catch you guys next time.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you'd like to hear more, there are new episodes that drop every Monday and Thursday. If you liked what you heard, please help your gal out. By leaving a review. You can also give using the link below. I'd love to pray for you. If you have any prayer requests, please send me an email to your Biblegal at gmail.com, which is also in the links below, along with all my other social media so you know where to find me. And remember, sisters, walk boldly in faith this week. God is with you every step of the way.