Today, I am reading and commenting on  Romans 8-10.

Paul finishes his exposition on salvation by grace through faith in today’s before moving on to some of the implications it has for us.  First, Paul tells us that if we have the Spirit of God living in us we will live according to the spirit (or possibly the Spirit) not according to the flesh.  So, we need to set our minds on what the Spirit desires and turn our minds from what the flesh desires.  Paul also tells us that if we do not have the Spirit of Christ we do not belong to Christ.  One could easily misinterpret what Paul is writing here to think that since we need to live according to the spirit rather than the flesh that the physical world is irredeemably evil.  But Paul recognizes that and points out that God raised Christ from the dead as an example that He will give life to our mortal bodies.  That is, just as Christ’s physical body was raised from the dead, so too our bodies will be raised from the dead (should we die before the day of transformation arrives).

From there Paul goes on to point out that as we live in these untransformed bodies we suffer in various ways, perhaps just the pain of our bodies getting older, but perhaps pain and suffering inflicted on us because we profess faith in Christ.  However, we have the hope of God transforming our bodies, just as He did Jesus’ body.  In the meantime, God’s Spirit will help us in our weakness.  While we do not all for which we should pray, the Spirit does and it will intercede for us according to the will of God.  Further Paul tells us that God works in all things for the good of those who love Him.  Knowing this, why should we fear anything?  If God is defending us, is working for our good, who can bring harm to us?  Perhaps you fear being separated from God, but Jesus said that no one can snatch us out of His hand and here Paul tells us that nothing can separate us from Him.  In fact, one of my favorite declarations of faith is here:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I too share that conviction.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.