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

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

Some of what Paul writes in today’s passage is relatively easy to understand and some of it is extremely difficult to understand.  We easily understand that if we allow ourselves to think about sinful things we will find ourselves doing those things, while if we allow the Holy Spirit to control our thoughts and think about godly things we will do godly things.  Following up on that is the idea that if we allow the Holy Spirit to do so, He will help us to do God’s will. (The part about helping us pray syncs right up with my comments I made the other day about needing to pray more).  We can even easily understand that nothing, no power, thing, or being, can make it so that God does not love us.  We will experience God’s love whether we wish to or not.  For those of us who desire the experience of God’s love there can be no greater comfort than to realize that God is looking out for our best interests.

Which brings us to the things which are more difficult to understand.  Elsewhere Paul speaks about the need to choose to do God’s will.  Even at the beginning of this passage he writes that we must not allow our sinful nature to control us.  Yet he also writes that we can neither choose nor work to receive God’s mercy; that God chooses to whom He will show mercy and to whom He will not.  So, what does this mean?  There may be more to it than this, but at the very least, it means that I cannot consider myself better than any other person.  Being a follower of Christ does not make me better than someone who is not, not even the vilest sinner I can imagine.  I am not a better person than Adolf Hitler was, than Josef Stalin was, than the murdering rapist just caught by the police.  I have not done those evil, terrible things because of God’s grace and mercy, not because I am somehow better than those people.  Yet, to fully experience the joy which God has in mind for me I must choose to embrace His love and allow it to transform me.