{"id":1328,"date":"2009-10-29T21:07:07","date_gmt":"2009-10-30T03:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=1328"},"modified":"2009-10-29T21:07:07","modified_gmt":"2009-10-30T03:07:07","slug":"romans-312-wayward-and-useless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/romans-312-wayward-and-useless\/","title":{"rendered":"Romans 3:12 – Wayward and Useless"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Romans 3:12<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.”<\/span><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Truth to Learn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Doing religious things our own way is useless.<\/p>\n

Behind the Words<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The word translated, \u201cturned aside<\/span>\u201d is ekklin\u014d<\/span><\/em>, which is made up of ek<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cout of\u201d and klin\u014d<\/span><\/em>, meaning \u201cto bend, or to turn aside.\u201d Hence, ekklin\u014d<\/span><\/em> means \u201cto turn aside out of the way.\u201d The image is of someone who is walking down a path and turns off the path. So, when we take our own path instead of the one that God desires for us, we have \u201cturned aside.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHave become unprofitable<\/span>\u201d is the Greek word achreio\u014d<\/span><\/em>, which literally means, \u201cto become useless.\u201d It is a word that is used of food which has spoiled and is no longer useful as food.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meaning Explained<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In today\u2019s verse the Apostle Paul continues his quotation from Psalms 53. He says we have all turned out of the way and have become useless. As a result, none of us does anything truly good; no, not even one of us!<\/span><\/p>\n

Paul, like other writers of Holy Scripture, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, depicts life as a journey, walking down the pathways of life. We have God as our guide on the path as long as we are willing to listen to Him. He knows the pathway for us to take which will glorify Him. But we often ignore His leading and travel the pathways that we want to take. Inevitably, however, the path we choose leads us into trouble and we have to call out to our Guide for help. The wonderful part of this is that whenever we call out to Him and admit our selfish sinfulness, He is right there to rescue us and to lead us back to the right path.<\/span><\/p>\n

In today\u2019s verse Paul tells us that when we sin, we have turned out of the way God intended for us, going our own way. Not only will this likely result in us getting into trouble, Paul tells us that we are no longer useful to God in accomplishing His desire for us. His desire is to use us for His glory, but our sins prevent that from happening. As a result, we become useless to Him like spoiled food.<\/span><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t matter whether we are Jews or Gentiles. It doesn\u2019t matter whether we attend church every Sunday. It doesn\u2019t matter if we read our Bibles every day. It doesn\u2019t matter if we pray without ceasing. It doesn\u2019t matter if we serve on the worship team, as an usher, as a Sunday school teacher, work in the nursery, serve on a committee, or give of our time to work on the church building. It doesn\u2019t matter if we witness faithfully or do any other good deed. When we fail to listen to the still, small voice of God, we fail to follow His leading and we turn aside to do these things for ourselves, instead of doing them for His glory. And Paul tells us that we become useless to God and the things we do are not good things.<\/span><\/p>\n

Application<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

God expects us to give of our time, talents, and treasure for the furtherance of His kingdom. If we serve Him with the wrong attitude, if we serve Him for the wrong reason, if we serve Him simply because we want to do it or because we feel pressured into doing it, we\u2019re walking down the wrong path and we don\u2019t glorify God. But if we do anything because the Holy Spirit has lead us to do it, this is good and it pleases God. <\/span><\/p>\n

In God\u2019s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"signature\"<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2009 Will Krause. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

<\/span>If this message or this link was forwarded to you by a friend and you wish to receive future verses directly to your inbox, you can call the church phone \"\"(618) 614-3070<\/span><\/span><\/span> and leave a message telling us your name and e-mail address or you can send an e-mail to:\"e-mail<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Romans 3:12 They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.” Truth to Learn Doing religious things our own way is useless. Behind the Words The word translated, \u201cturned aside\u201d is ekklin\u014d, which is made up of ek, meaning \u201cout of\u201d and klin\u014d, meaning \u201cto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[568,569,570,571],"class_list":["post-1328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-none-who-does-good","tag-turned-aside","tag-unprofitable","tag-wayward"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-lq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}