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

I do not fully comprehend the message which Paul has for us in today’s passage.  As I have said previously, Paul is trying to communicate the truths about an infinite God to people with finite minds, and Paul himself had a finite mind.  However, there is one point about which I am sure.  I have no basis to claim to be better than anyone else.  I was not saved because of anything I have done.  I have been reconciled to God because of His mercy, not because of my desire or effort.  My action can bring me no closer to God, only by God drawing me to Him can I approach Him.  Which brings me to another point which I see in this passage. We, who love the Lord, need to tell others about what He has done for us so that they also might come to know Him.  In today’s passage, Paul writes that God has mercy on who He would have mercy, and hardens those whom He wishes to harden against Him.  Yet he ends today’s passage by telling us that held out His hands to those who were disobedient.  As I said, I have no basis to claim to be better than anyone else, because all that I do with any good to it results from what God has done in and to me.  And if I were to pursue sin and wickedness I would have no basis to claim to be worse than others because there also I would be constrained by what God chose to make of me.

Really, there are two messages in today’s passage.  First, we are saved by God’s mercy and the faith which it inspires within us.  Second, that faith comes from hearing the message, so once we have been brought to God through the faith He gives us by His mercy, we are obligated to preach that message to others so that they too might come to put their faith in Him.

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