Unlimited: God Gave Them Over
Apr 26, 2022 1270
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another (Romans 1:24).
The apostle Paul has just written that humanity degraded their view of God and worshipped images of created things instead. Now he tells us that when we degrade our view of God, we will degrade our view of ourselves. Sexual impurity will be the result.
The idea of God giving sinful mankind over to sexual impurity, refers to God simply withdrawing his protection, and allowing the inevitable results of sin to run their natural course. It is certainly true that sexual impurity destroys peace of mind, relationships, marriages, churches, and even nations.
God graciously provides us with ample opportunities for repentance and salvation.
However, the abandonment by God of humanity to its sin that is spoken of here is not an eternal abandonment. For as long as we live, God graciously provides us with ample opportunities for repentance and salvation. We see this in the book of Revelation, which refers to Jezebel, who led God’s servants into sexual immortality (Rev 2:20.) She is the archetype of sexual impurity, yet God still says,
I have given her time to repent of her immorality (Rev 2:21).
The desires of our hearts, whether revealed in sexual impurity or not, are sinful by their very nature. To be safe, we must learn to respond to his kind invitations to receive his grace, and continually submit our will to God.
Spiritual Application
On the one hand, human free will is a wonderful thing, yet on the other, the idea of God just letting us go and do whatever we want is a fearsome one. How do we resolve this tension? By surrendering our will to God and letting him rule in our lives. Is that what you are doing?
NELSON KINGSLEY
Apr 26, 2022
Thanks so much for the devotional. It was so spiritually enriching.