ROMANS 1
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. – Romans 1:24-25,28-32
ROMANS 1 SINS BRING ABOUT A DEBASED MIND
A poem by ILMA inspired by these verses
Whenever you do not take off your old nature
You will be automated to do what your flesh craves for
Your mind will be filled with covetousness and greed
You will find ways to satisfy such cravings and needs
As you continue sinning, you will develop a debased mind
It is a mind that does not retain anything that comes from God.
In the following verses, we hear the phrase “God gave them up”. It doesn’t mean that God’s has forsaken his people as he promised them. Notice that preceding this phrase are two sins that God hates. In verse 24, God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity and in verse 28, it was their debased mind to do what was not to be done. It is what they did that God was abandoning, not the person himself. God cannot tolerate sin because He is love. Sin is unloving acts. The Lord God cannot allow evil to continue when he knows that his children will suffer the consequences of their sins. But since God gave us a will to choose and decide what is good for us, he cannot force us to stop doing what we want that is hurting us. It is baffling when we confuse needs with wants and when we follow our sinful nature instead of listening to the Spirit’s guidance.
The aftermath of a believer who does not honor his own body or who constantly serves his lusts is that they become the thing they want. They do not see that their bodies are not their own, but God’s property, so they do with it what they want. Remember that we are the temple of God if we believe in Him. We will be adulterous and have loyalty to ourselves instead of to our Lord.
Another consequence of continually not acknowledging or honoring God is a debased mind. The Lord will not force them to choose the righteous path since he has already given his laws and his word to them. To continue to satisfy their desires and whims shows that they do not love the Lord and that will lead to loving themselves and all the things they love. In other words, God gave us a will to choose him, but will never force us to do so. His love for us is enough for us to honor, obey and love him back.
REFLECTION
- Why do you think God gives up on his people on these two occasions in verses 24 and 28?
