Daily Bible Reading
Day 44
Today's reading: Romans 8-10
Look for the promises in God’s word. As you read and find them, write them in your journal along with the scripture reference.
Romans 8
The Believer’s Relationship to the Holy Spirit
1. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2. For the law of the life-giving Spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
3. For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,
4. so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5. For those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped by the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their outlook shaped by the things of the Spirit.
6. For the outlook of the flesh is death, but the outlook of the Spirit is life and peace,
7. because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to the law of God, nor is it able to do so.
8. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him.
10. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is your life because of righteousness.
11. Moreover if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his Spirit who lives in you.
12. So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh
13. (for if you live according to the flesh, you will die), but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.
14. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.
15. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery leading again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba, Father.”
16. The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children.
17. And if children, then heirs (namely, heirs of God and also fellow heirs with Christ) – if indeed we suffer with him so we may also be glorified with him.
18. For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us.
19. For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God.
20. For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God who subjected it – in hope
21. that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children.
22. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now.
23. Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
24. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees?
25. But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance.
26. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.
27. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes on behalf of the saints according to God’s will.
28. And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose,
29. because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
30. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.
31. What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32. Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things?
33. Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
34. Who is the one who will condemn? Christ is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who also is interceding for us.
35. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
36. As it is written, “For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37. No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us!
38. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39. nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 9
Israel’s Rejection Considered
1. I am telling the truth in Christ (I am not lying!), for my conscience assures me in the Holy Spirit –
2. I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.
3. For I could wish that I myself were accursed – cut off from Christ – for the sake of my people, my fellow countrymen,
4. who are Israelites. To them belong the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises.
5. To them belong the patriarchs, and from them, by human descent, came the Christ, who is God over all, blessed forever! Amen.
6. It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all those who are descended from Israel are truly Israel,
7. nor are all the children Abraham’s true descendants; rather “through Isaac will your descendants be counted.”
8. This means it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God; rather, the children of promise are counted as descendants.
9. For this is what the promise declared: “About a year from now I will return and Sarah will have a son.”
10. Not only that, but when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our ancestor Isaac –
11. even before they were born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose in election would stand, not by works but by his calling) –
12. it was said to her, “The older will serve the younger,”
13. just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
14. What shall we say then? Is there injustice with God? Absolutely not!
15. For he says to Moses: “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
16. So then, it does not depend on human desire or exertion, but on God who shows mercy.
17. For the scripture says to Pharaoh: “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may demonstrate my power in you, and that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”
18. So then, God has mercy on whom he chooses to have mercy, and he hardens whom he chooses to harden.
19. You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who has ever resisted his will?”
20. But who indeed are you – a mere human being – to talk back to God? Does what is molded say to the molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
21. Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use?
22. But what if God, willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath prepared for destruction?
23. And what if he is willing to make known the wealth of his glory on the objects of mercy that he has prepared beforehand for glory –
24. even us, whom he has called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?
25. As he also says in Hosea: “I will call those who were not my people, ‘My people,’ and I will call her who was unloved, ‘My beloved.’”
26. “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”
27. And Isaiah cries out on behalf of Israel, “Though the number of the children of Israel are as the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved,
28. for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth completely and quickly.”
29. Just as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of armies had not left us descendants, we would have become like Sodom, and we would have resembled Gomorrah.”
Israel’s Rejection Culpable
30. What shall we say then? – that the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness obtained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith,
31. but Israel even though pursuing a law of righteousness did not attain it.
32. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but (as if it were possible) by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone,
33. just as it is written, “Look, I am laying in Zion a stone that will cause people to stumble and a rock that will make them fall, yet the one who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
Romans 10
1. Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God on behalf of my fellow Israelites is for their salvation.
2. For I can testify that they are zealous for God, but their zeal is not in line with the truth.
3. For ignoring the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking instead to establish their own righteousness, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
4. For Christ is the end of the law, with the result that there is righteousness for everyone who believes.
5. For Moses writes about the righteousness that is by the law: “The one who does these things will live by them.”
6. But the righteousness that is by faith says: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’” (that is, to bring Christ down)
7. or “Who will descend into the abyss?” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
8. But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we preach),
9. because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
10. For with the heart one believes and thus has righteousness and with the mouth one confesses and thus has salvation.
11. For the scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.”
12. For there is no distinction between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, who richly blesses all who call on him.
13. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
14. How are they to call on one they have not believed in? And how are they to believe in one they have not heard of? And how are they to hear without someone preaching to them?
15. And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How timely is the arrival of those who proclaim the good news.”
16. But not all have obeyed the good news, for Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report?”
17. Consequently faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes through the preached word of Christ.
18. But I ask, have they not heard? Yes, they have: Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.
19. But again I ask, didn’t Israel understand? First Moses says, “I will make you jealous by those who are not a nation; with a senseless nation I will provoke you to anger.”
20. And Isaiah is even bold enough to say, “I was found by those who did not seek me; I became well known to those who did not ask for me.”
21. But about Israel he says, “All day long I held out my hands to this disobedient and stubborn people!”