God wants us to have success in navigating the Sanctification Road. This daily devotion looks at what Paul’s terminology of waking has to do with our salvation.
Nuggets
- Salvation leads to the Sanctification Road, which leads to Heaven.
- We must be actively pursuing our relationships with God.
- Today is the day to accept and work on our salvation.
To read devotions in the Redo for Godliness series, click the appropriate button below.
Devotions in the Transformed to Perfection series
Devotions in the Submitting to Transformation series
Wow! Romans 13: 11 is a packed verse. I was going to finish out the chapter in this devotion, but I won’t get that far.
I think I need to start at the end of the verse and mix it up. Let’s dig in.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of what we’ve discussed previously.
Salvation Is Near
“Besides this, since you know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep, because now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed” (Rom. 13: 11 CSB)
Salvation leads to the Sanctification Road, which leads to Heaven.
When I first read this, my mind went to the fact that judgment day is coming. All non-believers have a limited amount of time to hear the gospel message and believe.
Belfrage took it another way, one that speaks directly to our transformation on the Sanctification Road. We can’t say, “We’ve got our salvation. We’re done.”
- Sanctification is the transformation of mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration, gradually changes our nature through the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal requickening in us that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
- The perfected state indicates the combination of the spiritual graces which, when all are present, form spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
Glossary
We’ve talked before about salvation being one of those three-part words. We were saved the instant that God forgave our sins (salvation past).
But that didn’t mean salvation was over. Our job description says we need to work out our salvation. We do that as we navigate the Sanctification Road (salvation present).
• Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
• Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
• Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart. Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
• Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
The Disciple’s Job Description
Complete Job Description
Individual Description
Job Duty #2
Work Out Our Salvation (Philippians 2: 12)
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Glossary
Yes, we don’t reach the end of the Sanctification Road until we are made perfect. That isn’t going to happen until we reach heaven (salvation future).
I love what Thomas said. He said that salvation is a process that leads to perfection.
Resource
Okay, so the process is working out our salvation on the Sanctification Road. Perfection happens in Heaven.
Belfrage stated that we need to exhibit a “… spirit of active goodness, by a reference to many of its precepts, and by detailing the strenuous efforts of its genuine disciples to go on to perfection.”
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Three words jump out at me there: active, many, and strenuous. Precepts are talking about the laws and commandments.
Our salvation requires action on our part. Yes, there are many laws and commandments, but keeping them ensures we are changed to imitate God’s character. It will take strenuous effort to make the transformation.
Spurgeon argued that this verse is talking about salvation future. This verse is all about eternal glory. The journey to get there started when we believed.
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I think it is about both. You can’t have the eternal glory without the salvation. We get the eternal glory when we agree to salvation. They are inseparable.
Salvation is nearer than we believe. I think that means judgement day is nearer than we think.
But I also think that means our perfection is nearer than we think. We see ourselves through our failures and sins. We don’t see ourselves as God does.
God sees our potential. He sees us how we will be in Heaven.
McMichael listed four responsibilities disciples have. They are
- “Our relation to God.
- “Knowledge of salvation.
- “Duties in our sphere of life.
- “Influence we exert.”
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We are responsible for ensuring our relationship with God is active and growing.
Who Needs to Wake Up?
“… it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep …” (Rom. 13: 11 CSB)
We must be actively pursuing our relationships with God.
Parsons was under the impression that sleep referred to non-believers. They are ignorant or forgetful of spiritual things and their true character as made in God’s image. Indifference feeds that condition.
Resource
Parry disagreed in calling sleepers non-believers. He said only believers could sleep. Non-believers are dead.
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Melvill thought Paul was speaking to active Christians, not non-believers. We could say this was a rally cry for them to change their ways.
Well, Beeby did say that formalism is a type of delusion. A formalist is a person who gives the appearance of being a disciple, but in reality, isn’t.
Resource
We are deluding ourselves when we think that we can earn our way into salvation. We can’t just follow the rituals and give lip service to our relationship with God.
We are also deluding ourselves if we are banking on our self-righteousness to save us. It won’t. Only Jesus will.
What Melvill thought Paul was cautioning disciples about was we have to grow as we navigate the Sanctification Road. He wrote, “Spiritual slumber is not necessarily the folding up of every power and faculty, but the not developing them in the necessary degree.”
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Melvill thought Paul was telling his readers that the end of the Sanctification Road is near — and you aren’t at the end. There was much more work to be done before perfection could be achieved.
It could also be describing backsliders. Backsliding is when those who have made a profession of faith return to their sinful lives.
Parsons equated it to those who have lost their first love. The pull of this world was too much for them.
To read a related devotion, click on the appropriate button below.
We know Paul did not shy away from telling people they were missing the boat. He was all about getting believers and non-believers alike into a right relationship with God. He could do that in different levels of strictness.
Hammond noted that sleep can be caused by a false understanding of atonement and salvation. We aren’t going to understand everything, but what we do understand has to be accurate.
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Hammond attributed this to moral weakness or a sinful habit. He stressed our need for self-control.
When Is It Time?
“Besides this, since you know the time, it is already the hour for you to wake up from sleep …” (Rom. 13: 11 CSB)
Today is the day to accept and work on our salvation.
It could be that Paul said it is nearer than we think is because some believe that Heaven begins here on earth. I know we talked about that once. I doubt I will be able to find which devotion that is in.
Spurgeon said that true godliness makes us evaluate ourselves — puts the focus, in a sense, on us. It makes us determine if we are accomplishing our duties or not.
But that looking at ourselves shows us our responsibilities to others. Paul had just been telling us about our duty to love others. We are to be our brother’s keeper.
Spurgeon made a good point. He wrote, “Paul does not say, ‘If you do not wake you will be lost.’ He speaks in a gospel tone, ‘Now is your salvation nearer than when you believed.’
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When we are asleep, it includes an element of unconsciousness. Parry said that sleeping disciples aren’t doing anything religious.
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We say that time heals all wounds, but it does not destroy sin. As McMichael said, it doesn’t even take away the guilt. Only God can do that.
Disciples are called to knowledge. Yes, we are on a lower pay grade than God is, so we won’t know everything.
But we will be given wisdom. Wisdom is an enlightened acceptance of God’s principles that leads to knowledge, discernment, and good sense that is put into practice through salvation, increasing our goodness and virtue.
We are to know in order to turn away from the night and enter the day. We are to awake and head toward the day.
But that means we are to act.
Making the Connections
It is imperative that disciples be active — but not just working out our own salvation. Parsons wrote, “The wakefulness and diligence here summoned has respect not only to our own salvation, but also to the salvation of others. This must be, that the whole of Christian character may be developed, and that the whole of Christian duty may be performed.
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We have to be actively pursuing our job description. We are called to preach and make disciples.
The Disciple’s Job Description
Complete Job Description
Individual Description
Job Duty #4
Proclaim the Gospel (Mark 16: 15)
Job Duty #6
Make Disciples (Matthew 28: 19-20)
For some, that is a big submission to Christ. We just don’t feel qualified to be labeled a preacher.
Remember, in Ephesians, Paul combined preacher and teacher. We are all teachers in some form or another, so that makes us preachers.
Melvill gave us some great words of encouragement. He wrote, “The only Scriptural certainty that a man will be saved is the certainty that he will struggle. Struggling is incipient salvation. It is an intenser struggle which marks a fuller possession. If, then, a man would show that his salvation is nearer, he must also show that he is more wakeful, more in earnest.”
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The strong disciple is going to struggle greatly. It’s okay.
The struggle is going to be worth it. As we grow through the struggles, we gain holiness. We need that holiness for entrance to Heaven.
How Do We Apply This?
- Don’t become careless in our walk with God.
- Constantly work on the transformation to the character of God.
- Meditate on Him.
- Don’t sleep spiritually.
- Show our gratitude to God.
- Consider what carelessness and inactivity does to our witness.
- Live so that death is not an urgent situation.
- Actively prepare for Heaven.
Resource
Transforming to perfection is not an easy road. We make it easier by submitting to God.
Father God. We submit to You, meaning we pledge to keep Your laws and commandments. Grow us as we navigate the Sanctification Road, so that we can be made perfect when You call us home. Amen.
What do you think?
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