Sound Thinking

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

SOUND THINKING

Rom 12:3-8

3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. 4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

NIV

We did not get very far into this passage on our visit with it, as all we could focus on was the fact that we should think more highly of ourselves than we should, which translates into not boasting about either what we do or our accomplishments. No, we must think of ourselves with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given to us. First, this Greek word translated as sober carries the meaning of being of sound mind. This would mean that we should not have a fantasy about ourselves, as in looking in a mirror and seeing, in the case of this old person, seeing a still youthful one, able to jump higher than a building, run faster than a speeding train, or something that we are not. This also applies to our lives in the community of faith and in the world. Once again, humility stands taller than boasting, including that boasting if it is only to ourselves. The key to thinking with a sound mind is understanding that it is God who has metered out a limited amount of faith in us. What we also know is that God does not show favoritism thus we would have to believe that he meters out the same amount of limited faith to each and every one of us. We use the term, limited amount because that is the meaning of this Greek word translated as a measure. Nevertheless, the point is that without God giving us whatever amount of faith he does, we would not even be able to have any faith at all. This gives us the truth that without God, we are faithless and hopeless. Once again, we cannot even boast about our faith, for it is a gift of God, like everything else in us, such as life itself and all that we are and all that we do. Everything is a gift from God. It is his grace at work in our lives. In fact, when we consider that Greek word for grace, we have been understanding that it means his divine influence in our lives and how that is reflected in our lives. How do we reflect God? This is the vocation given to us from the start. We were to be the image bearers of God. This is sound thinking in accordance with the measure of faith God has given us. Rather then projecting our image, which would be through our boasting regarding whatever we do, again, supposedly for the kingdom, although boasting is more about what we do for our own image, the only person we can boast about is Jesus. We must see ourselves for who we are, flawed, in one sense, but at that same time declared holy and righteous by God because we have used that measure of faith he has given to us to believe in the one he sent, Jesus. We will see, as the rest of this passage explains, that we are members of one body, His body, and we are completely reliant on God for whatever function we serve within the body of Christ. For now, let us move forward in our understanding with sound thinking.