In a world that often celebrates self-promotion and personal platforms, Romans 12:10 calls us into a radically different way of living. Instead of trying to get ahead of each other, we are invited to be devoted like family and to look for ways to lift others higher than ourselves. This isn’t a personality trait for the “nice ones” in church; it is a supernatural lifestyle that flows from the gospel itself.

Devoted Hearts in a Detached Age

Romans 12:10 says, “Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Outdo yourselves in honoring one another.” That word “devoted” is family language. In Christ, we are not loosely connected religious consumers; we are brothers and sisters bound together by His blood. Jesus said, “A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so also you must love one another” (John 13:34). The measure of our love is not our comfort level, but His cross-shaped love for us.

This is challenging in a detached age where it is easy to keep relationships shallow and optional. But Scripture will not let us settle for that. Peter echoes this call: “Since you have purified your souls by obedience to the truth, so that you have a sincere love for the brothers, love one another deeply, from a pure heart” (1 Peter 1:22). Deep, pure, brotherly love means we stay, we care, we pray, we show up. It means we see the people in our church not as background characters in our story, but as precious family in God’s story.

Outdoing Each Other in Honor

The second half of the verse is wonderfully competitive: “Outdo yourselves in honoring one another.” The usual competition is for attention, credit, and recognition. The Spirit flips that on its head. We are to become eager, creative, almost “ambitious” about honoring others more than ourselves. Paul writes, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves” (Philippians 2:3). To honor others is to treat them as weighty, valuable, worthy of our time and attention because God has set His love on them.

Imagine what happens in a church where people quietly race to encourage others, to notice unseen faithfulness, to celebrate God’s grace in each other’s lives. Hebrews 10:24 urges us, “And let us consider how to spur one another on to love and good deeds.” Honoring one another is one of the main ways we do that. Instead of waiting to be affirmed, we become initiators—speaking life, pointing out Christlike character, and giving thanks for the gifts God has placed in our brothers and sisters.

Practicing Family Love Today

This kind of love and honor is not just an idea for sermons; it is meant for grocery lines, text messages, small groups, and Sunday conversations. Galatians 5:13 reminds us, “For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love.” Every day brings small choices: Will I serve my comfort, or will I serve a brother or sister in love? Devotion is built one unseen, ordinary choice at a time.

Ask the Holy Spirit today to put one specific person from your church or family on your heart. Consider: How can I honor them? A thoughtful message, a sincere word of encouragement, a hidden act of service, a prayer they never hear about? Jesus said, “By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35). When we practice devoted, honoring love in the ordinary, we put His glory on display in a way the world cannot explain.

Lord Jesus, thank You for loving me with a devoted, honoring love. Today, help me see others as You see them and empower me to actively honor and serve my brothers and sisters for Your name’s sake.

The last cause I shall name is nonobedience. Truth is given to be believed and obeyed. Certain truths can only be believed, the reason being that they are revelations of fact and contain no command or instruction to be carried out. Other truths must be obeyed or for the hearer they have no meaning.

"I will come back" (John 14:3) is a statement of fact which cannot in the nature of it be obeyed; there is nothing in it to obey; it can only be believed. "Go and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19) is a command which can only be obeyed. It is addressed to the will, and the only proper response is obedience. We cannot possibly discharge our obligation to such a passage by trying in some dubious manner to "believe" it, though I am sure many try to do just that. Is it any wonder that confusion arises?

We will go far to simplify our religious concepts and unify our lives if we remember these four points: First, truth is a spiritual entity and can be grasped in its inner essence only as the Spirit of truth enlightens our hearts and teaches us in the deep, mysterious recesses of our souls. Secondly, since God is love we must surrender ourselves to love or we can never know the truth of God in its higher meaning. Thirdly, we must come to the Word with the simple faith of a child, ready to believe it whether we can understand it or not. And lastly, we must obey the truth as we see it, trusting God with the consequences.

He hath sent me , . . to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. - Isaiah 61:1

Many of us know not the bondage in which we are held. We are held in it all the more really and sadly because we conceit ourselves to be free. Those poor, light-hearted people, in the dreadful days of the French Revolution, used to keep up some ghastly mockery of society and cheerfulness in their prisons; and festooned the bars with flowers, and made believe to be carrying on their life freely, as they used to do; but for all that, day after day the tumbrils came to the gates, and morning after morning the jailer stood at the door of the dungeons with the fatal list in his hand, and one after another of the triflers were dragged away to death.

And so men and women are living a life which they fancy is free, and all the while they are in bondage, held in a prison-house. You, my brother, are chained by guilt; you are chained by sin, you are chained by the habit of evil with a strength of which you never know till you try to shake it off.

And there comes to each of us a mighty Deliverer, who breaks the gates of brass, and who cuts the bars of iron in sunder. Christ comes to us. By His death He has borne away the guilt; by His living Spirit He will bear away the dominion of sin from our hearts; and if the Son will make us free, we shall be free indeed. Oh! ponder that deep truth, I pray you, which the Lord Christ has spoken in words that carry conviction in their very simplicity to every conscience. "He that committeth sin is the slave of sin." And as you feel sometimes - and you all feel sometimes - the catch of the fetter on your wrists when you would fain stretch out your hands to good, listen as to a true Gospel to this old word which, in its picturesque imagery, carries a truth that should be life. To us all "the breaker is gone up before us, the prison gates are open." Follow His steps, and take the freedom which He gives; and beware that you "stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free, and be not entangled again with any yoke of bondage."

Some of you are the slaves of your own lusts. Some of you are the slaves of the world’s maxims. Some of you are held in bondage by some habit that you abominate, but cannot get away from. Here is freedom for you. The dark walls of the prison are round us all. "The Scripture hath shut up all in sin, that He might have mercy upon all." Blessed be His Name! As the angel came to the sleeping Apostle, and to his light touch the iron gates swung obedient on their hinges, and Roman soldiers who ought to have watched their prey were lulled to sleep, and fetters that held the limbs dropped as if melted; so, silently, in His meek and merciful strength, the Christ comes to us all, and the iron gate which leadeth out into freedom opens of its own accord at His touch, and the fetters fall from our limbs, and we go forth free men.