Paul expresses the urgency of letting the Holy Spirit take over the Roman believers’ lives. He tells them about the need to change their lives from a heathen way of thinking and living to lives that reflect the work of Jesus Christ in them. Jesus said they are lights to the world; they are God’s living testimonies. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16) They are salt to the world, but if their lives mirror the heathens around them, they are nothing. In fact, maybe not real Christians at all. Of course, Christians are to live their lives every day with the expectation that the Lord will come again to this earth. He will appear to gather his own, to end the darkness of their human existence: violence, killings, maiming, sexual abuse, thievery, humiliation, and all sorts of selfish depravation. While waiting for Christ’s imminent return, Paul tells the Romans to put on love: Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:9-10) In many places, the Bible describes this world as evil, unredeemable without divine intervention. No philosophy, heathen religion, profound ideas, political leanings, wars or revolutions can end the darkness that is continuously present in the hearts of men. Out of the heart grows the wicked intentions of man towards man. God sees this evil state as we read in the beginning of our study of Romans: The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. (Romans 1:18-19) Now we are at a point in our history that man’s wickedness has so evolved that two men with the nuclear button from opposing countries could wipe out all mankind within a few minutes. Man’s only hope of redemption from this evil in the heart of man is the creation through God’s saving grace of new creatures, with new hearts, and heavenly attitudes. Paul tells the people in Rome to put aside this nature of man and put on the nature of Christ. He wants them to let the Holy Spirit do his work in their hearts, to let his voice become preeminent in their lives. Paul knows unless the voice of God becomes more real, more important, more persuasive than the voices that float as sound waves through the external world, they will never change, never become ambassadors of God’s great nature. Consequently, he desires them to take the first step towards a new creature, one that is embedded in Christ, by putting aside the ways of the world, and instead, put on Christ. He says, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.
We who are presently IN CHRIST should understand that we have a responsibility to live for God each day with an expectant attitude towards Christ’s soon return to Earth. God is timeless, so this is always the day of Christ’s return. We never get away from that day, but sometimes we forget to live with the urgent expectancy of that day. We start living as the world lives, as if Jesus will never reenter the affairs of man. Christians’ lives can become lives of collecting, buying and selling, fulfilling mundane activities. Rather than looking for the Lord, we can become fixated on the activities and things of this world. Of course, we have to live in a world that demands our concentration, our minds, our abilities, our energy, but if we lose contact with the heavenly plan of redemption and of Christ’s soon coming, we will fill our thoughts and lives with the worldly functions of living. When Jesus tells a parable that describes his second coming, the nobleman in the story who goes away says, “Occupy until I come.” (Luke 19:13) He means we should carry on with living. Yet this close connection to the world can be very dangerous for Christians who need to listen to God. For when the world is too much with us, the Bible can become a nonessential in our lives. Our prayers will sometimes cease or be sporadic. Media and entertainment tend to become essential to fill our lives with purpose and joy. If we lose contact with God by not thinking of him or failing to commit ourselves to him and his purposes daily, we can become cold or even dead to the Holy Spirit’s voice inside of us. Then our anemic spiritual lives will fail to emphasize the works of God in this evil world. Rather than having a purpose in life that is God planned, we will be wanderers, trying to find an oasis of peace and comfort someplace in this world but looking in the wrong places. But God has promised to be our peace, our comfort, our place of rest. When we lose our daily Christian focus, the Bible becomes a dead letter to us: we have little desire to read it or if we do, it becomes a perfunctory obligation, not an anticipated activity. If we lose contact with God by not thinking of him daily or relying on him, we will have a desire to fill our lives with other things. Materialism becomes important to us. Entertainment, sports, work and the like fill up our days. In this world of electronics and media that can always entertain us, our spiritual commitment can die of a thousand cuts. We can go through the whole day without praising the Lord, without singing a song about his goodness. If we are like that are we really his people? Are we really living under the banner of Christianity or are we just people who belong to a group called Christians. The world is supposed to have over two billion Christians. How many are living lives that expect Christ to appear soon? How many are living their lives with a daily expectation to hear his voice, to know his direction for their next steps? Despite all this, we have a God who continually reaches out to his people, just as Jesus did when He walked this earth saying, “Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Yes, salvation is near, available to each person who will come to him. We do need to wake up from our slumber in this world with so many activities and demands on our lives. We do need to know that our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. If not in Christ’s second coming, then in our eventual death, our salvation every day is nearer than when we first believed. This life is very short, transitory, fragile. We lead lives that are finite, small in so many ways. Most of us will not leave a big imprint on this world. After our own demise, after a short while, not many will even remember or care that we once lived. The Bible places great importance on genealogies. For some reason, the writers of the Old and the New Testament wanted us to know the lineage, the heritage of people. These lists of names are not very important or significant to us. We do not know their lives or understand well why they are mentioned. But to God, heritage is important or we would not have these lists of names in the Bible. Heritage reveals the footprint of God in families, in generations of lives. Heritage reveals his faithfulness to mankind. His promises are passed down from one generation to the next. He promised to honor those who serve him by blessing their children. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:5-6) We who are alive IN CHRIST are to honor Christ in our lives. We are to live as if He were going to return today. Our lips should be serving him by praising and singing his name. Our minds should be constantly on him. Our activities should be for his glory. We should be fixated on his name. We are Christians with the Holy Spirit resident in us. Genealogy is important to God. It should be important to us. We should be living lives for the unborn, those who follow us, those we will never see. Maybe our great-great-grandchildren or friends who we will never be introduced to will have something in them that we planted into someone else’s life a long time ago. We should be living for the anticipated Christian impact that we will have on our descendants, even the unborn of the future. Abraham’s faith was not only in God’s promise for his present life; his faith was for those who were unborn, who would see God’s faithfulness to the Jews. Can you understand that if you live today for God as if Jesus would return in your lifetime, that that faith will have a reality someday in future generations. We do not know the day of his return. Jesus said, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36) Christ will return, perhaps in the day of someone from a future generation who has been touched by something from you—a spiritual thought you shared, a poem, a revelation you received. They will be holding on confidently because of your imprint of faith on their lives through your faithfulness today. Dear friends, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and live today with an expectancy of Christ’s immediate return.
The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Yes, salvation is near, available to each person who will come to him. We do need to wake up from our slumber in this world with so many activities and demands on our lives. We do need to know that our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. If not in Christ’s second coming, then in our eventual death, our salvation every day is nearer than when we first believed. This life is very short, transitory, fragile. We lead lives that are finite, small in so many ways. Most of us will not leave a big imprint on this world. After our own demise, after a short while, not many will even remember or care that we once lived. The Bible places great importance on genealogies. For some reason, the writers of the Old and the New Testament wanted us to know the lineage, the heritage of people. These lists of names are not very important or significant to us. We do not know their lives or understand well why they are mentioned. But to God, heritage is important or we would not have these lists of names in the Bible. Heritage reveals the footprint of God in families, in generations of lives. Heritage reveals his faithfulness to mankind. His promises are passed down from one generation to the next. He promised to honor those who serve him by blessing their children. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:5-6) We who are alive IN CHRIST are to honor Christ in our lives. We are to live as if He were going to return today. Our lips should be serving him by praising and singing his name. Our minds should be constantly on him. Our activities should be for his glory. We should be fixated on his name. We are Christians with the Holy Spirit resident in us. Genealogy is important to God. It should be important to us. We should be living lives for the unborn, those who follow us, those we will never see. Maybe our great-great-grandchildren or friends who we will never be introduced to will have something in them that we planted into someone else’s life a long time ago. We should be living for the anticipated Christian impact that we will have on our descendants, even the unborn of the future. Abraham’s faith was not only in God’s promise for his present life; his faith was for those who were unborn, who would see God’s faithfulness to the Jews. Can you understand that if you live today for God as if Jesus would return in your lifetime, that that faith will have a reality someday in future generations. We do not know the day of his return. Jesus said, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matthew 24:36) Christ will return, perhaps in the day of someone from a future generation who has been touched by something from you—a spiritual thought you shared, a poem, a revelation you received. They will be holding on confidently because of your imprint of faith on their lives through your faithfulness today. Dear friends, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and live today with an expectancy of Christ’s immediate return.
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