Study Desk

So if I do what I don't want to do, then I am not really the one doing it. It is the sin living in me that does it.

So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me.

I thank God for his salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my mind I am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.

So now anyone who is in Christ Jesus is not judged guilty.

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.

He did this so that we could be right just as the law said we must be. Now we don't live following our sinful selves. We live following the Spirit.

So, my brothers and sisters, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves. We must not live the way our sinful selves want.

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.

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.

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 this mean? That God is not fair? We cannot say that.

So God will choose anyone he decides to show mercy to, and his choice does not depend on what people want or try to do.

In the Scriptures God says to Pharaoh: "I made you king so that you could do this for me. I wanted to show my power through you. I wanted my name to be announced throughout the world."

So God shows mercy to those he wants to show mercy to and makes stubborn those he wants to make stubborn.

So one of you will ask me, "If God controls what we do, why does he blame us for our sins?"

He waited with patience so that he could make known the riches of his glory to the people he has chosen to receive his mercy. God has already prepared them to share his glory.

And Isaiah cries out about Israel: "There are so many people of Israel, they are like the grains of sand by the sea. But only a few of them will be saved.

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 did not know the way that God makes people right with him. And they tried to make themselves right in their own way. So they did not accept God's way of making people right.