Year 5, Day 30: Romans 7

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Guidance

• Guidance: God grants us His guidance.  Sometimes this guidance is God leading us away from temptation.  Sometimes this guidance is helping us to follow in a direction for which He has chosen.  Our default position should be to wait for God’s guidance and then follow when it comes.

I think that this is an interesting chapter with which we can deal with the topic of guidance.  After all, in this chapter Paul tells us that the Law is unnecessary for the person who is in Christ.  Yet on the other hand, the Law is righteous.  So what is the real truth of the Law?

Here’s Paul’s point.  When we are obeying God, we are walking in God’s ways.  We are receiving and listening to the Holy Spirit within us.  We are being guided by God and following Him.  In this situation, things are working out well as our relationship with God is fruitful and meaningful.

However, this is not the only possibility.  We are all sinful.  We all follow the passions of our own hearts.  As we turn to our own passion, we need guidance to turn back to God.  The Law reminds us of our sinfulness.  The Law reminds us of how to obey God.  The Law helps to put us back on the right path and remind us of our need for Jesus Christ.

So we can see that God has richly set His guidance before us.  We have His Holy Spirit to follow.  But when we do not desire to follow the Spirit, we have the Law to remind us that we have instead chosen to follow the desires of our own heart.  In either case, God has lavished us with opportunities for guidance.

<><