29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.
Romans 1: 29-31 (NIV, per biblegateway.com)
The List
Ok, here you are, are you ready for them?
A Christian shouldn’t be:
- Filled with wickedness
- Filled with evil
- Filled with greed
- Filled with depravity
- Full of envy
- Full of murder
- Full of strife
- Full of deceit
- Full of malice
- A gossip
- A slanderer
- A God-hater
- Insolent
- Arrogant
- Boastful
- An inventor of evil
- Disobedient to his/her parents
- Without understand
- Without fidelity
- Without love
- Without mercy
Did you get all that?
Some of these may seem weird or old fashioned, but wowo Paul goes into a lot of detail. But look over the list with an open mind. What jumps out at you> Slanderer? I love politics. That field is full of slanderers, and I’ve been known to dabble in the slander myself–against candidates or official whom I don’t even know.
What about disobedient to parents? That’s a big one for kids my age (I’m 20), but you know I increasingly see it in older generations too. How many 50 year olds or 30-40 year olds do you know that constantly disparage their parents or treat them like . a burden rather than a blessing (after all, no matter what your parents are like, you wouldn’t be here without them.)
Paul gives us an array to choose from, and I’d encourage you to get a little introspective for a second and look over the list yourself. I’ve read this whole chapter out loud probably 15 or 16 times and listened to it probably 30 times (if you don’t know why I’m doing that, then I’d encourage you to check out my post for memorizing Romans 1: https://romans-road.com/2020/02/04/memorize-an-entire-bible-chapter-with-one-simple-trick/ ), but today was the first day I actually stopped to use the list to examine my heart and my actions. How many of those things define me? Too many, that’s for sure.
SO go ahead and look over that list. Pray over that list. Pray against that list. But also, a life defined nin the negatvie can turn negatively purty darn quick. So pray also for the characteristics of someone who knows the Jesus personally-who is personally filled with the Holy Spirit.
Need a reminder? I sure do:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV, per biblegateway.com)
