Daily Devotion by Ray Stedman

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for September 15th​

Dead to Sin​

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

Romans 6:1-2

Notice three things about this question: Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? First, notice that the question is logical. This is a very good question. If your gospel does not arouse this question in somebody's mind, there is likely something wrong with it, for it is the kind of question that ought to be asked at this point. There is something about the grace of God that immediately raises this issue. If sin is so completely taken care of by the forgiveness of Christ, then we don't really need to worry about sins, do we? They are not going to separate us from Christ, so why not keep on doing them? It is a perfectly logical question.

But, second, notice that even our very nature would have us raise this question. It is not only logical, but it is also natural. That is because sin is fun, isn't it? We like to do it. Otherwise we wouldn't keep on doing it, we would not get involved in it. We know sins are bad for us, but we like to do them. Otherwise we would not. Therefore, any kind of a suggestion that tells us we can escape the penalty for our sin and still enjoy the action arouses a considerable degree of interest in us.

We must understand that Paul is talking about a lifestyle of sin, not just a single act or two of failure. He is talking about Christians who go on absolutely unchanged in their lifestyle from what they were before they were Christians. The word for go on sinning is in the present continuous tense. It means the action keeps on happening. Paul is talking about a habitual practice. Can we go on living this way? Finally, notice that this question is put in such a way as to sound rightly motivated and even pious. Shall we go on sinning, so that grace may increase? This suggests that our motivation for sinning is not just our own satisfaction — we are doing it so that grace may increase. God loves to show his grace. Therefore, if we go on sinning, he will have all the more opportunity. This question is not asked by a complete pagan, but by someone who seems intent on the glory of God. Having said that, we come now to the answer, the positive answer of Paul.

Paul immediately reacts with a very positive statement, bluntly put: By no means! We are those who have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? This does not mean that sin is dead in me. It doesn't mean that I have reached the place where I cannot sin. Neither does Paul mean by this that we are dying to sin; that we are gradually changing and growing, and there will come a time when we will sort of outgrow all this evil. It doesn't mean that at all. Again, we must face clearly the statement the apostle makes. He puts it in a once for all way: We died to sin. It is impossible for your lifestyle to continue unchanged when you become a Christian. It is simply impossible, because a change has occurred deep in the human spirit. And those who protest, and say they can go on living this way, are simply revealing that there has been no change in their spirit, there has been no break with Adam. They are still in the same condition.

Thank you, Father, for the grace of our Lord Jesus, who has the power to break the grip of death upon my life.

Life Application​

Are we using God's Grace as a pretext for continuing in our sins? What are three reasons why we continue this subterfuge? Are we choosing to live in Christ's Resurrection Life rather than sin and death in Adam?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for September 16th​

True Baptism​

Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Romans 6:3-4

It is always interesting to me that when some people hear the word baptism they immediately smell water. When I was a boy in Montana, I had a horse that could smell water from farther away than any animal I ever saw. There are people who are like that. Whenever they read these passages, and see the word baptism, they smell water, but there is no water here. This is a dry passage.

This passage is dealing, of course, with the question of how we died to sin, how we became separated from being in Adam, how we became joined in Christ. No water can do that. That requires something far more potent than water. It is, therefore, a description for us of what is called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote to the Corinthians: For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body — whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all given the one Spirit to drink, (1 Corinthians 12:13). He says twice that all believers were baptized into one body. We were placed into Christ. You are not a Christian if that isn't true of you. People today who say you need to experience the baptism of the Holy Spirit after you become a believer do not understand the Scriptures. There is no way to become a believer without being baptized with the Spirit.

Notice some things that Paul says about the baptism of the Spirit in this passage: First, he says that we are expected to know about it. Don't you know... Paul asks. He expects these Roman Christians, who had never met him or been taught personally by him, to know this fact. It is something new Christians ought to know.

Notice also that the apostle says, This is how we died to sin. The great statement of this passage is that when we became Christians, we died to sin. Paul is still discussing the question, Can a believer go on sinning? No, answers Paul, because he died to sin. How did we die to sin? This is how, Paul explains: The Spirit took us and identified us with all that Jesus did. That means that somehow this is a timeless event. The Spirit of God is able to ignore the two thousand years since the crucifixion and resurrection and somehow identify us with that moment when Jesus died, was buried, and rose again from the dead. We participate in those events. That is clear.

Therefore this is not theological fiction; it is fact. Adam sinned, and we sin. Adam died, and men ever since have died. The apostle is saying that what was true in Adam has now been ended and now we are in Christ, by faith in Jesus Christ. Once Adam's actions affected us; but now what Christ did becomes our actions as well. Christ died, and we died; Christ was buried, and we were buried with him; Christ rose again, and we rose with him. So what is true of Jesus is true of us. Here Paul is dealing with what is probably the most remarkable and certainly the most magnificent truth recorded in the pages of Scripture. It is the central truth God wants us to learn. We died with Christ, were buried, and rose again with him. That union with Christ is the truth from which everything else in Scripture flows. If we understand and accept this as fact, which it is, then everything will be different in our lives. That is why the apostle labors so to help us understand this.

Lord, thank you for this assurance that, having been baptized in the Holy Spirit, I can rest assured that I am dead to sin and alive to you.

Life Application​

Can water baptism bring us out of our death in Adam and into new Life in Christ? What is its purpose? What essential and transforming truth does the baptism of the Holy Spirit signify?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for September 17th​

A New Master​

For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Romans 6:14

Why does Paul bring in the Law? He brings in the Law because he is dealing with one of the most basic problems of the Christian struggle, the thing that often depresses and discourages us more than anything else — the sense of condemnation we feel when we sin. The Law produces condemnation. The Law says that unless you live up to this standard, God will not have anything to do with you. We have been so engrained with this that when we sin, even as believers, we think God is angry and upset with us and he doesn't care about us. We think that way about ourselves, and we become discouraged and defeated and depressed. We want to give up.

But Paul says that is not true. Believers are not under Law, and God does not respond that way toward us. We are under grace. God understands our struggle. He is not upset by it; he is not angry with us. He understands our failure. He knows that there will be a struggle and there will be failures. He also knows that he has made full provision in Christ for us to recover immediately, to pick ourself up, and go right on climbing up the mountain. Therefore, as his beloved child, you and I don't need to be discouraged, and we won't be.

Sin will not be your master because you are not under law and condemnation, but under grace. And even though you struggle, if, every time you fail, you come back to God and ask his forgiveness, and accept it from him, and remember how he loves you, and that he is not angry or upset with you, and go on from there, you will win.

I will never forget how, as a young man in the service during World War II, I was on a watch one night, reading the book of Romans. This verse leaped out of the pages at me. I remember how the Spirit made it come alive, and I saw the great promise that all the things I was struggling with as a young man would ultimately be mastered — not because I was so smart, but because God was teaching me and leading me into victory. I remember walking the floor, my heart just boiling over with praise and thanksgiving to God. I walked in a cloud of glory, rejoicing in this great promise: Sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Looking back across the years since that night, I can see that God has broken the grip of the things that mastered me then. Other problems have come in, with which I still struggle. But the promise remains: Sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

How grateful I am, Father, for this word of assurance that as one who is in Christ I need not be discouraged and need not fail, for there is nothing that can separate me from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Life Application​

When our sins are exposed by the Law, where do we go with our burden of guilt? Are we learning to live in the forgiveness and liberating power of God's grace? Are we captured by God's unrelenting Love?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for September 18th​

A New Husband​

Do you not know, brothers and sisters — for I am speaking to those who know the law — that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.

Romans 7:1-3

Paul uses an illustration to teach us the way to be free from the Law. The woman is us. She has two husbands, one following the other. Notice what the death of the first husband does to the woman's relationship to the Law. When the first husband dies, the woman is released from the Law. Not only is she released from her husband, but she also is released from the Law. If her husband dies, the Law can say nothing to her as to where she can go, and what she can do, and who she can be with. She is released from the Law. The death of the husband makes the woman dead to Law.

The first husband is Adam, this old life into which we were born. We were linked to it, married to it, and couldn't get away from it. Like a woman married to an old, cruel, mean husband, there is not much she can do about it. While she is married she is tied to that husband. She cannot have a second husband while she is married to the first. She is stuck with #1, and she has to share his lifestyle of bondage, corruption, shame and death. That is why we who were born into Adam have to share the lifestyle of fallen Adam.

If this woman, while she is married to her first husband, tries to live with another — for this lifestyle is sickening to her — she will be called an adulteress. Who calls her that? The Law does. The Law condemns her. It is only when the first husband dies that she is free from that condemnation of the Law and can marry again. When she does, the Law is absolutely silent; it has nothing to say to her at all. Verse 4 says, So...you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.

What a fantastic verse! Here is the great, marvelous declaration of the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Notice how Paul draws the parallel: So ... you also. We fit right into this. The key words here are you also died to the law through the body of Christ. The body of Christ refers to the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross.

Paul is referring to what the Scriptures say in many places — that on the cross the Lord Jesus was made sin for us. He took our place, as sinful humanity, on the cross. In other words: He became that first husband, that Adamic nature to which we were married. When he became that, he died. When he died, we were freed from the Law.

The Law has nothing to say to us anymore. We are free to be married to another, no longer to our Adam-like flesh, but instead to the risen Christ. Our first husband was crucified with Christ; our second husband is Christ, now risen from the dead. We now share his name. We share his power. We share his experiences. We share his position, his glory, his hope, his dreams — all that he is, we now share! We are married to Christ, risen from the dead. The Law, therefore, has nothing to say to us.

Thank you for this Father. I pray that I may understand more fully that I am not under condemnation. Even though I struggle and don't always act on the principles revealed to me, nevertheless, you don't reject me, you don't cast me aside.

Life Application​

How did Christ's death change our relationship to the Law? How did Christ's resurrection change our identity? How does this profoundly affect the way we deal with both sin and guilt?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for September 19th​

The Continuing Struggle​

For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

Romans 7:18-20

Paul says that as a Christian, redeemed by the grace of God, there is now something within him that wants to do good, that agrees with the Law (because the Law describes God's holy nature), that says that the Law is right. There is something within that says what the Law tells me to do is right, and I want to do it. But also, there is something else in me that rises up and says No! Even though I determine not to do what is bad, I suddenly find myself in such circumstances that my determination melts away, my resolve is gone, and I end up doing what I had sworn I would not do.

So, what has gone wrong? Paul's explanation is, It is no longer I who do it; it is sin living in me. Isn't that strange? There is a division within our humanity. There is the I that wants to do what God wants, but there is also the sin which dwells in me. Human beings are complicated creatures. We have within us a spirit, a soul, and a body. These are distinct. Paul is suggesting here that the redeemed spirit never wants to do what God has prohibited. It agrees with the Law that it is good. And yet there is an alien power, a force that he calls sin, a great beast that is lying still within us until touched by the commandment of the Law. Then it springs to life, and we do what we do not want to do.

This is what we all struggle with. The cry of the heart at that moment is: What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24) Right here you arrive at where the Lord Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3). Blessed is the man who comes to the end of himself. Blessed is the man who understands his own spiritual bankruptcy. Because this is the point — the only point — where God's help is given.

This is what we need to learn. If we think that we have got something in ourselves that we can work out our problems with, if we think that our wills are strong enough, that we can control evil in our lives by simply determining to do so, then we have not come to the end of ourselves yet. The Spirit of God simply folds his arms to wait and lets us go ahead and try it on that basis. And we fail, and fail miserably — until, at last, out of our failures, we cry, O wretched man that I am! Sin has deceived us, and the Law, as our friend, has come in and exposed sin for what it is. When we see how wretched it makes us, then we are ready for the answer, which comes immediately in verse 25: Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Who will deliver me from this body of death? The Lord Jesus has already done it. We are to respond to the feelings of wretchedness and failure, to which the Law has brought us because of sin in us, by reminding ourselves immediately of the facts that are true of us in Jesus Christ. We are no longer bound to our sinful flesh by the Law. We are married to Christ, Christ risen from the dead. We must no longer think, I am a poor, struggling, bewildered disciple, left alone to wrestle against these powerful urges. We must now think, I am a free son of God. I am dead to sin, and dead to the Law, because I am married to Christ. His power is mine, right at this moment. Though I may not feel a thing, I have the power to say, No! and walk away and be free, in Jesus Christ.

Thank you, our Father, for the simple and clear teaching of this passage. Help me to understand that I am freed from the Law once it has done its work of bringing me to the knowledge of sin. I cannot control myself by that means or deliver myself from evil, but I can rest upon the mighty deliverer who will set me free.

Life Application​

What is the purpose of the Law? What affect does our new identity as Christ's bride have on our desire to live pleasing to Him? Do we have the power to resolve the continuing conflict of spirit vs. soul and body? Are we surrendering our incompetence to His all-surpassing power?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for September 20th​

No Condemnation​

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Romans 7:25b-8:1

Paul says, I want to do good. I believe in it. I delight in God's law — God's holy nature — in my inner being. I am changed; I agree that the law is good, but I find I can't do it. In his mind Paul is awakened to the value and the righteousness of God's law, but set against that is this sin that is in his flesh that takes hold of him and makes him a slave to the law of sin, even though he does not want to be.

How does Paul break this hold? Paul is saying though we struggle at times, there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. The reason there is no condemnation is given in just one little phrase: in Christ. That goes right back to our justification by faith: We came out of Adam, We are in Christ, and God will never condemn those who are in Christ. He never will! We have to understand what no condemnation means. Certainly, the most basic element in it is that there is no rejection by God. God does not turn us aside, he does not kick us out of his family. If we are born into the family of God by faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit has come to dwell within us, and he will never, never leave us. Another thing no condemnation means is that God is not angry with you when this struggle comes into your life. You want to be good, or you want to stop doing bad, but, when the moment of temptation comes, you find yourself overpowered and weak, and you give way. Then you hate yourself. You go away frustrated, feeling, Oh, what's the matter with me? Why can't I do this thing? Why can't I act like I want to? And though you may condemn yourself, God does not. He is not angry with you about that.

The beautiful figure is that of a tender, loving father, watching his little boy begin to take his first steps. No father ever gets angry with his little son because he doesn't get right up and start running around the first time he tries to walk. If the child falls and stumbles and falters, the father helps him; he doesn't spank him. He lifts him up, encourages him, and shows him how to do it right. And if the child has a problem with his feet, maybe one foot is twisted or deformed, the father finds a way to relieve that condition and help him to learn to walk. That is what God does. He is not angry when we are struggling. He knows it takes awhile — quite awhile, at times. And even the best of saints will, at times, fall. This was true of Paul, it was true of the apostles, and it was true of all the prophets of the Old Testament. Sin is deceitful and it will trip us at times. But God is not angry with us.

Heavenly Father, I am forever grateful that you are slow to anger when I continue to run and follow things of this world. Thank you for your patience and the abundance of grace I receive each day.

Life Application​

What do we do with the guilt inevitably resulting from our sin and failure? Do we seize the pre-paid grace-gift of God's forgiveness? Do we then live free from condemnation and free to the quality-control of His Spirit?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries

 

[Obadiah]

A daily devotion for September 21st​

Good News​

For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by our sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the sinful man, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to our sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:3-4

This is a beautiful description of the good news in Jesus Christ. Paul says the Law is powerless to produce righteousness. It cannot do it. It cannot make us good — no way. It can demand and demand and demand, but it cannot enable and it never will. This, by the way, is why nagging somebody never helps. Nagging is a form of law, and God will not let the Law nag us because it doesn't help. It only makes it worse. If you try to nag your husband or wife or child, you will find that the same thing happens there. Nagging only makes them worse. Why? The reason, Paul says, is because the Law only stirs up the power of sin. It releases this force, this beast within us, this powerful engine that takes over and carries us where we don't want to go. That is why nagging, or any form of the Law, will never work. It is not because there is anything wrong with what is being said — it is because of the weakness of the flesh that it cannot work. Paul says in First Corinthians 15, The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law, (1 Corinthians 15:56). The Law keeps sin going, it stirs it up.

To break through this vicious circle, Paul says, God sent forth his own son. There is a beautiful tenderness about this. He sent his own Son. He did not send an angel, he did not send a man — he sent his own Son as a man, in the likeness of sinful flesh. Notice that. He did not send him just in the likeness of flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh. Jesus had a real body, a body like yours and mine. Since sin has been done in the body, it has to be judged and broken in the body. Therefore, Jesus had a body. But it was not just a body of sinful flesh, it was the likeness of sinful flesh. It was like our sinful bodies, in that it was subject to infirmities (Jesus was weak and tired and hungry and weary), but there was no sin in him. Paul preserves that very carefully here.

In that body of flesh, without sin, he became sin. As we read here, he was offered as an offering for sin. And in the mystery of the cross, which we can never, never understand, no matter how long we live, somehow the Lord Jesus, at the hour of darkness, gathered up all the sins of the world, all the terrible, evil, foul, awful injustice, crime, and misery that we have seen throughout history, from every person, gathered it into himself, and brought it to an end by dying. The good news is that somehow, by faith in him, we get involved in that death.

Father, thank you that the way out of my struggle with sin is not by forcing myself to be different, but by seeing that I already am different. I have been cleansed and purified and made whole in Jesus Christ. He is my life, and I belong to him and always will. Help me to believe it and to act that way.

Life Application​

Are our lives being sculpted by the power of God's amazing grace? Do we live as ones liberated from the dead works of performance and demand? Is this freedom evident in our relationships with others? Are we responding with awe and gratitude to both the mystery and reality of God's gift in His Son?

Daily Devotion © 2014, 2025 by Ray Stedman Ministries.