Day 4

We all have authorities in our lives that we are accountable to and must obey. We start this life with our parents as authorities and often our grandparents, aunts, and uncles are included as authorities. As we age, we add teachers, employers, law enforcement officials, and our government. God makes it clear in His Word how we are to respond ...

Today, God starts by telling us in Romans 13:2, Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. God makes it pretty clear that anyone who opposes any authority over them is opposing the command from Him. So, people are in direct conflict with our Lord w...

God continues to declare to us why there are authorities in our lives and what His purpose is for them to carry out. God starts by reminding us (in Romans 13:3) that we should have zero fear of any authorities if we make the right choices, but if we’re already making bad choices, ones we know dishonor our Lord, we ought to live in fear of all...

As we continue our walk through Romans 13 this week, in Romans 13:4, God tells us that His authorities are His servants/ministers sent for our good. Remember we talked about this in yesterday’s devotion, that God uses godly and ungodly authorities to lovingly discipline His children when we get out of fellowship with our Lord (Hebrews 12:7–11...

Submitting to authorities is sometimes easy and sometimes incredibly difficult. The difficulty comes because we think our way is better than theirs or we disagree with the demands they place on our lives. But God tells us this in Romans 13:5: “Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ s...

We get into a subject today that no one likes to talk about, taxes. Well, accountants and others like them don’t mind talking about taxes, but most people do not want to have to deal with taxes at all. But even God deals with taxes in His Word, so taxes have been around for a long time. Paying taxes obviously has been a subject that people ha...

As we finish Romans 13:1–7, God takes us just a little deeper on the issue of paying to others what we owe them. In Romans 13:7, God tells us, “Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.” Note that God progresses from paying taxes to paying back the debts we owe, resp...