Devotion #3: Morality is Not Enough

If you grew up with siblings, you know the pain of watching your brother or sister get a slice of cake that is just slightly larger than your slice. It was a common occurrence for one of my sisters and I to lose our minds and say to our mother, “That’s not fair!” As humans, we like to think in terms of fairness and right or wrong. We like to think that we can figure out the moral standard that we should live by, and at times, we feel like we need to hold others to that moral standard that we have set. Fortunately for us, that work of setting a moral standard has already been done for us by our Creator. Unfortunately for us, we can struggle at times to agree with His standard, or we can find fault with what is just in His eyes because it does not seem fair in our eyes. Some people see morality as a thing to be chased and sought after for the sake of living a good life by checking off the boxes of a morally just person. There are others that flagrantly defy the notion of morality as a whole. Our passage for today addresses both of these ideas.  

In Romans 2:6-11, we read, “He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the Greek. For God shows no partiality.” Paul is saying that God will judge all the same. Regardless of what we think is moral or how many checkboxes we successfully fulfill in our moral checklist, no matter how religious we are, we will be judged equally to someone who is living in obvious sin. Only a person who has never done evil can avoid the tribulation and distress of God’s judgment. We are all in need of a Savior, is the point that Paul is making here. We cannot do it alone. We cannot try to decipher what is fair and just because none of us are righteous. We cannot set the moral standard because, at our core, we are not moral beings. We are all flawed because of our sinful, fleshly nature.  

However, there is One that can save us despite our sins. Moral or depraved, we all need the saving grace of Jesus. He is Jesus, who left Heaven to live on Earth and suffer as a man. He never sinned and paid the price for all sins on the cross. If we repent of our sins and believe in Him, we can be saved. If you are living your life in open defiance to God, turn from your fleshly desires and run to Him. If you are living your life by your moral code and hoping that you have been good enough to make it to Heaven when you die, let go and turn to the God that died for you. To those who are saved: do not let your loved ones be fooled by either of these tempting pitfalls. Help guide them to the hope and love found in Jesus.