Your Daily Devotional for June 8, 2006

June 8, 2006

 

Our Advantage

by Dr. Paul Chappell

 

“What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?  God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man) God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world? For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.”

 

Romans 3:1-8

 

A man called his neighbor to help him move a couch that had become stuck in the doorway. They pushed and pulled until they were exhausted, but the couch wouldn’t budge. "Forget it," the man finally said, "We’ll never get this in." The neighbor looked at him quizzically and said, "In?"

 

Friend, have you ever been misunderstood? In this passage, the Jews were coming to the Apostle Paul complaining that there was no advantage in being a Jew. God had said that they were His chosen people and yet they had to get saved just like everyone else. They were misunderstanding what God had meant by “His chosen people.”

 

The Jews had a lot of advantages, such as possessing God’s Word. God had set His Word in the Jewish temple so that they could read of Him. Although God had made the Bible available to them, they read the Scriptures because they wanted to feel more spiritual than the rest of the world and not because they wanted to truly learn of God.

 

They knew they were God’s chosen people, and because they were God’s people they would escape judgment, but Paul told them that they weren’t righteous just because of their birth. John 1:9-13 alludes to this when it says, “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

 

The Jews had taken on a sense of pride because they had the Word of God and did not understand what the Bible was saying to them. They also had the advantage of hearing of salvation and being able to be saved, but how unfortunate that they rejected that message given to them. They had all that they needed in life and yet they never used it to help them.

 

Friend, we have an advantage! We have the Word of God to help us throughout the day. How sad it is when we as Christians possess God’s Word and yet we never use it to our advantage. God gave us His Word so we could use it to help us in our everyday life. Are you using this advantage to its full potential or is God’s Word just another book on your shelf? Have you searched His Word today?

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