Study Desk

The true children of God are those who let God's Spirit lead them.

If we are God's children, we will get the blessings God has for his people. He will give us all that he has given Christ. But we must suffer like Christ suffered. Then we will be able to share his glory.

Everything that God made is waiting with excitement for the time when he will show the world who his children are. The whole world wants very much for that to happen.

Everything God made was allowed to become like something that cannot fulfill its purpose. That was not its choice, but God made it happen with this hope in view:

That the creation would be made free from ruin—that everything God made would have the same freedom and glory that belong to God's children.

We know that everything God made has been waiting until now in pain like a woman ready to give birth to a child.

Not only the world, but we also have been waiting with pain inside us. We have the Spirit as the first part of God's promise. So we are waiting for God to finish making us his own children. I mean we are waiting for our bodies to be made free.

Also, the Spirit helps us. We are very weak, but the Spirit helps us with our weakness. We don't know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself speaks to God for us. He begs God for us, speaking to him with feelings too deep for words.

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.

God knew them before he made the world. And he decided that they would be like his Son. Then Jesus would be the firstborn of many brothers and sisters.

God planned for them to be like his Son. He chose them and made them right with him. And after he made them right, he gave them his glory.

So what should we say about this? If God is for us, no one can stand against us. And God is with us.

He even let his own Son suffer for us. God gave his Son for all of us. So now with Jesus, God will surely give us all things.

Who can accuse the people God has chosen? No one! God is the one who makes them right.

But in all these troubles we have complete victory through God, who has shown his love for us.

Yes, I am sure that nothing can separate us from God's love—not death, life, angels, or ruling spirits. I am sure that nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us or nothing below us—nothing in the whole created world—will ever be able to separate us from the love God has shown us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

They are the people of Israel, God's chosen children. They have the glory of God and the agreements he made between himself and his people. God gave them the Law of Moses, the Temple worship, and his promises.

They are the descendants of our great fathers, and they are the earthly family of the Messiah, who is God over all things. Praise him forever! Amen.

I don't mean that God failed to keep his promise to the Jewish people. But only some of the people of Israel are really God's people.