You see, through the first eleven chapters of Romans, Paul has been focusing on God’s redemptive work for us through Jesus Christ. The focus of the letter has been on what God has done, but there’s a shift that occurs in Romans 12. See, Paul begins to turn his attention to God’s redemptive work in us. He turns his attention to what we are now called to do. And, he begins to demonstrate this profound point— that the power of God at work within you is not just for the forgiveness of sin; it’s also the empowerment to be made more like Him. Theologians would say it this way: the power of God is not only for justification but also for sanctification.

It is easy to overlook something when we don’t really know what we’re looking at. When we aren’t looking for what we ought to be looking for, the details will escape us. The circumstances and environments we find ourselves within can often cause us to miss the deeper reality of what God is doing. In one of Jesus’ last statements, He declares that He is the Resurrection. Jesus doesn’t say that He brings resurrection or that He gives life. He’s not merely communicating something He does by these words; rather, He is showing us who He is. And, if we don’t know what it is we’re looking for, we’ll miss it.

What’s portrayed in Thorin’s story is something true of our own stories. Whether you are a Christ-follower or not, you know something about dragon-sickness. See, we’re all in a battle; we fight against a great dragon—who only speaks lies, knows only fear, and breeds only hate—, but do not be deceived because we do not fight with uncertainty about the outcome. Jesus already dealt Satan his deathblow when He was nailed to that Cross. The ruin of the Dragon and of sin and of fear and abandonment was sealed away when Jesus was nailed to the Cross, defeated death, and rose to life victoriously. The Dragon has been defeated, but we continue to battle against dragon-sickness within each of our hearts, don’t we?

Here is the beautiful news about the gospel, though: we are not prisoners of our predispositions. God is making us into something new. Simply because our parents are our parents, they naturally have an influence on the type of people we become. Something of themselves becomes hardwired deeply into our DNA and shapes and influences us. But, this is not only true of our biological parents. This deeply rings true about our heavenly Father as well. I think this is one of the reasons Scripture alludes to birth so strongly when talking about coming to faith in Christ. When we are born again, we are made into a new creation.

Until we recognize that sin has reduced each and every one of us to fools, we’re going to continue on our same paths of frustration and doubt and worry and, ultimately, destruction. Eve made a foolish decision disguising itself as a wise act. We do the same thing so often ourselves. Isn’t it so true that we make our decisions and our decisions make us. In other words, who we are today is based upon the decisions we made yesterday. Who you will be tomorrow is determined by the decisions you make in this moment. Continue to make foolish choices and remain a fool.

The zipped-lips emoji wasn’t even fully welcomed to the community until 2015. Now, it may communicate that you have a secret, or it may be used to tell someone to “zip it.” Keep your mouth shut. And, man, that can be hard for us sometimes, can’t it? Just because we could say this or do that, sometimes the best option is to, well, zip it. And, I understand this isn’t so much an emotion in and of itself as it is the hinge upon which the door of our emotions hangs. As someone once said, “You are always responsible for how you act, no matter how you feel.”  That’s self-control. And, self-restraint is a rare quality.

We’ve always been good runners. Now, you may be like me and never have displayed any sort of penchant for the physical activity, but running has still been hardwired into our DNA. It doesn’t take much observation to realize this is true. One can easily see how our mind chases after certain thoughts or how our hearts run toward their desires swiftly and, at times, almost relentlessly. Our legs are not the only things that make us great runners. We are runners through and through. And, as we look at the life of Gideon, we see a man who ran toward the call of God even when it seemingly made no sense at all. Unfortunately, we don’t always use our running capabilities as they were intended to be used. Sometimes we hear the call of God and choose to run the other direction. So, in contrast to Gideon, we now turn to a familiar story—the story of Jonah, the man who ran from God.

It’s amazing how easy it was for an argument over the Scriptures to erode into a bloody war or how some unwelcome insects dissolved into sarcastic and personal attacks. Yet, these stories are things we can unfortunately identify with because every single one of us has been engaged in some sort of fight or quarrel. And, not just that but every facet of our lives has been touched by conflict―our spouses, our children, our jobs, our friendships, our neighborhoods, our nation. Some of you can’t even drive down the street without screaming at another car! And as we continue our series on the book of James, we find ourselves entrenched in an early Church conflict. I find it interesting that even one of the earliest books of the New Testament already had to remind the Church how to conduct themselves.