PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body as a holy and living sacrifice to you.
Jesus, We belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Romans 16:20–24 (NIV)
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.
Timothy, my co-worker, sends his greetings to you, as do Lucius, Jason and Sosipater, my fellow Jews.
I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord.
Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings.
Erastus, who is the city’s director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings.
• Some later manuscripts add: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. (v. 24)
CONSIDER THIS
So yesterday we remembered Paul’s closing zinger about false teaching (aka heresy) and its common origin of human appetites. Today we come to the bomb drop. Brace for it:
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
Lest we forget the biggest of the big pictures of the gospel of Jesus Christ, Paul tosses in this closing grenade:
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
There’s just something beautiful about making this declaration. It’s surprising.
The God of peace . . . We might expect something like . . . will bless you with every blessing in Jesus Christ. Nope.
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
This is straight up, “I BELIEVE THAT WE WILL WIN!”
Does Genesis 3:15 ring a bell? It contains the curse of Almighty God against the serpent in the wake of the fall of humankind to his dastardly temptation:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” (Gen. 3:15)
This text was clearly echoing in Paul’s spirit. Here’s the thing about echos, though. They diminish in volume until they can’t be heard. This is true with every voice save one: The voice of the Word of God. With God’s Word—by the power of the Spirit—the echo gets louder and louder and louder. By the time we get to Romans 16, Jesus has handed Paul the megaphone.
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
There’s a little-known Chris Tomlin song I will forever remember. It was one of those songs he wrote before he became Chris Tomlin. ;0) It was back in the late 1900s. Chris, along with the legendary Bob Swan, and I started a little gathering called “The Harvest” within The Woodlands Methodist Church.
On one of those early Sundays, he brought out this song. He called it, simply: “Romans 16:19.” Here are the words. And if you want to listen, here’s an old YouTube lyric video featuring the pre-record-label Tomlin.
Romans 16:19 says
Romans 16:19 says
Be excellent in what is good. Be innocent of evil.
Be excellent in what is good. Be innocent of evil.
And the God of Peace will soon crush Satan
God will crush him underneath your feet.
And the God of Peace will soon crush Satan
God will crush him underneath your feet.
Repeat twenty times! ;0)
I should mention that the “Romans 16:19 says” part is shouted. There is some melody to the “Be excellent in what is good. Be innocent of evil,” part. The last bit (actually Romans 16:20) is declared like a war cry in pure jubilation. In those days, which were the early days of the worship movement that has now circled the globe a thousand times, one of our parishioners brought a decibel meter to church each Sunday to give us the subtle hint the music was too loud. Let’s just say I think that was his last Sunday in the Harvest.
In those days, Bob Swan, the legendary forty-year youth pastor, pulled together all the youth pastors in the community, and together they launched a Tuesday night weekly meeting. They called it Fresh Vibe. I’ll never forget when that massive group met for the first time. Their volume put our Harvest crowd in the shade; especially when Chris led them in “Romans 16:19.” And oh my! That’s when it hit me. This is not a war cry. It’s a victory lap. It’s not a bomb. It’s fireworks!
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
The God of peace will soon crush Satan underneath our feet because the God of peace already has crushed Satan underneath his feet.
On a hill far away . . .
THE PRAYER
Abba Father! Bless you for the gospel who is Jesus Christ. We love our Savior. The day of march has come now, to make him our Lord—not just a little bit more but completely—altogether. We are ready for consecration; utter consecration. We are ready for transformation; complete transformation. We are ready for demonstration; extravagant demonstration. Come Holy Spirit! Light the fire in our hearts, in my heart. Fan the flames. The God of peace will soon crush Satan underneath our feet. Praying in Jesus’s name, amen.
THE QUESTION
Who’s ready to sing “Romans 16:19”? Who’s ready to shout it? For you Methodists among us, do you realize you were once called “Shouting Methodists”? Who is ready, in the spirit of King David, to become even more undignified than this? I’ll lead the way!
THE HYMN
How about it? I’ve already dropped the hint. Who’s ready to sing “The Old Rugged Cross.” It is hymn 236 in our Seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer’s Praise. Let’s sing it in a spirit of gratitude and joy.
For the Awakening,
J. D. Walt
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4 Responses
“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under YOUR feet.” This is a not so subtle reminder that, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” ( Galatians 2:20) This reminder should encourage us to stand firm in the this spiritual war; the battle is the Lord’s.
Amen and amen! My life verse! We claim the victory already won and walk in our new and true identity!
Amen, JD.
As far as false doctrine, when my mom died at a young age (the older I get, the younger her death seems), I nabbed in self-help, self-awareness, Buddhism, and mysticism, any way to find meaning and purpose, the value of my life. Then along came Christ! in my life. He is the answer I’d been looking for. Fireworks for my soulful spirit! Now that I understand my sinful nature, I get why I, pride, wanted to avoid Jesus. Christ is the only person sin fears. Our sinful nature doesn’t want to die, so it fights to survive. Remember Romans 7?
For us believers, we KNOW Christ has already won the spiritual war, we know how it ends! Satan knows this also. But Satan uses blitzkrieg tactics with unbelievers to kill, steal and destroy until the war is officially over. Christ second coming will seal the deal!
Staying 💪’n strong in Christ
Ephesians 6:10
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
I had a powerful Romans 16:19 experience when the future Commissioner of Agriculture for the state of Tennessee, Cotton Ivy, took me to an unusual church where people shouted and “became even more undignified than this.”
Here’s the funny story: https://hopethoughts.com/2014/08/01/tn-commissioner-of-agriculture-cotton-ivy-at-a-pentecostal-church/