Degradation

"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another." (Romans 1:24)

Are you following the progression in Romans 1 this week? 1) God is knowable from creation. 2) People willfully ignore Him as Creator: no worship, no thanks. 3) Their thinking becomes foolish. 4) They worship images of creation instead of God. And now 5) God releases them to fully surrender to sexual degradation.

Remember, Paul isn't coming to this conclusion after watching TMZ or reading atheist blogs. It's how the world works since the very beginning. Reverse engineer this list. If you notice that the society seems to be wallowing in sexual degradation (including lots of homosexuality; see v. 26-27), you should conclude that it started with rejecting the Creator God followed by refusing to worship and thank Him followed by the worship of creation (include our own bodies).

God expresses His wrath on humanity, in part, by allowing people to fully indulge in sin and experience all the painfully logical consequences of those choices.

Think: Have you ever made the connection between rejecting the Creator God and sexual immorality? Why do you think it's so easy to miss?

Pray: Ask God to help you not to treat sexual sin too lightly. Thank Him for His incredible grace and mercy to those in Christ. (That's what the rest of Romans is about.)

Do: Make some time to stat reading the rest of Romans. Notice exactly how God made a way for us to escape this cultural pattern of Godlessness, foolishness, and warped sexuality.