Romans 12:10-12 - Devoted in love

12:10

Focusing on the positive side of sincere love, we are to be devoted to one another and to honour one another above ourselves. Sincere love involves valuing and respecting other people. Sin urges us to focus on ourselves. This begins with being self-interested but ultimately leads to our destruction. When we focus on others, when we are outward looking, we become more human, more Christlike, and being Christlike is being truly human. This does lead to a practical problem. When are we genuinely looking out to the interests of others, or are we doing so just because we want the benefits that spring from it? This is one of the reasons why a law-based approach is futile and doomed to failure. Apart from our inability to satisfy the laws, we can find it incredibly difficult to know what our true motives are. So we need a grace, faith and Spirit approach. The Holy Spirit is working in our lives, teaching and transforming us, sometimes gently, sometimes not so gently. The Holy Spirit is not always a gentleman!

12:11

This is perhaps better translated (Morris), “do not be lazy, with the spirit, boiling”. There has been a lot of emphasis on our inability to earn our own righteousness, our inability to live godly lives by our own efforts. We need to trust in Christ and His sacrifice, and we need to live by the Spirit. But this does not mean that we do nothing. The more the Spirit works in our lives the more we will work. In 1 Cor 15:10 Paul says that because of God’s grace he worked harder than all the other apostles. If the grace of God is at work in our lives we will work to serve the Lord.

12:12

We can have joy at all times and in all circumstances. This does not mean we will not feel or experience the pain of various trials and difficulties, but we can still have joy in the midst of them. This is because we have hope, we know the destination that God is leading us towards. There will be times of affliction. These may come because of the circumstances of life, or because of direct persecution of the church. We must be patient in the midst of them, knowing that God is our deliverer. And we must be faithful in prayer, we must pray at all times with all sorts of prayers.