Study Desk

So what should we do? Should we sin because we are under grace and not under law? Certainly not!

I use this example from everyday life because you need help in understanding spiritual truths. In the past you offered the parts of your body to be slaves to your immoral and sinful thoughts. The result was that you lived only for sin. In the same way, you must now offer yourselves to be slaves to what is right. Then you will live only for God.

And sin found a way to use that command and make me want all kinds of things that weren't mine. So sin came to me because of the command. But without the law, sin has no power.

That is because in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made you free. It made you free from the law that brings sin and death.

The law was without power because it was made weak by our sinful selves. But God did what the law could not do: He sent his own Son to earth with the same human life that everyone else uses for sin. God sent him to be an offering to pay for sin. So God used a human life to destroy sin.

Why is this true? Because anyone whose thinking is controlled by their sinful self is against God. They refuse to obey God's law. And really they are not able to obey it.

Your body will always be dead because of sin. But if Christ is in you, then the Spirit gives you life, because Christ made you right with God.

God already knows our deepest thoughts. And he understands what the Spirit is saying, because the Spirit speaks for his people in the way that agrees with what God wants.

We know that in everything God works for the good of those who love him. These are the people God chose, because that was his plan.

This means that not all of Abraham's descendants are God's true children. Abraham's true children are those who become God's children because of the promise he made to Abraham.

But before the two sons were born, God told Rebecca, "The older son will serve the younger." This was before the boys had done anything good or bad. God said this before they were born so that the boy he wanted would be chosen because of God's own plan. He was chosen because he was the one God wanted to call, not because of anything the boys did.

So what does all this mean? It means that people who are not Jews were made right with God because of their faith, even though they were not trying to make themselves right.

They failed because they tried to make themselves right by the things they did. They did not trust in God to make them right. They fell over the stone that makes people fall.

It says this because there is no difference between those who are Jews and those who are not. The same Lord is the Lord of all people. And he richly blesses everyone who looks to him for help.

But don't act as if you are better than those branches that were broken off. You have no reason to be proud of yourself, because you don't give life to the root. The root gives life to you.

That is true. But those branches were broken off because they did not believe. And you continue to be part of the tree only because you believe. Don't be proud, but be afraid.

The Jews refuse to accept the Good News, so they are God's enemies. This has happened to help you who are not Jews. But they are still God's chosen people, and he loves them because of the promises he made to their ancestors.

At one time you refused to obey God. But now you have received mercy, because the Jews refused to obey.

And now they are the ones who refuse to obey, because God showed mercy to you. But this happened so that they can also receive mercy from him.

So I beg you, brothers and sisters, because of the great mercy God has shown us, offer your lives as a living sacrifice to him—an offering that is only for God and pleasing to him. Considering what he has done, it is only right that you should worship him in this way.