Slices
Prepare
Which three words describe how you feel about today? Turn those words into prayer. What words might God be speaking back to you?
Bible passage
God’s righteous judgment
2 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. 2 Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. 3 So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? 4 Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realising that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?
5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done.’ 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honour and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honour and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favouritism.
12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
Explore
It’s been said that every time we point a finger at someone else, there are three fingers pointing back at us (try it!).
Clearly in Rome there was a group (maybe the Jewish Christians) who were taking the higher moral ground. They felt that they were in a position to point the finger at others (maybe the Gentile Christians). But they were wrong: accusers and accused were all on common ground.
The accusers had developed an enormous blind spot and failed to see that even as they criticised the behaviour of others, they were in fact just as guilty (v 1). Just knowing the law (as the Jews did) is not enough: living it is what counts (v 13). Jews knew the law, and Gentiles ‘sensed’ the law in their consciences (vs 14,15) but all had failed to live lives shaped by God’s truth (vs 12–16).
How attentive are you being to God’s call to a holy life? God’s kindness leaves space for us to turn back to him (v 4), so rather than pointing the finger at others, it is better to respond to the fingers pointing back at us.
Respond
‘Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature’ (Colossians 3:5). Ask the Holy Spirit to gently point his finger at anything you need to ‘put to death’.
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Exodus 11,12; Matthew 22
Pray for Scripture Union
Pray for Mission Partner Cynllun Efe. Ask for God to bless their work with children, young people and families, mainly within the catchment area of the Gwyrfai and Peris valleys and the surrounding areas in the county of Gwynedd, north Wales.
