Study Desk

If people's thinking is controlled by the sinful self, there is death. But if their thinking is controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace.

But you are not ruled by your sinful selves. You are ruled by the Spirit, if that Spirit of God really lives in you. But the person who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Christ.

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.

If you use your lives to do the wrong things your sinful selves want, you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit's help to stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, you will have true life.

If we are God's children, we will receive blessings from God together with Christ. But we must suffer as Christ suffered so that we will have glory as Christ has glory.

Everything God made was changed to become useless, not by its own wish but because God wanted it and because all along there was this hope:

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, which means our bodies will be made free.

But we are hoping for something we do not have yet, and we are waiting for it patiently.

Also, the Spirit helps us with our weakness. We do not know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit himself speaks to God for us, even begs God for us with deep feelings that words cannot explain.

He did not spare his own Son but gave him for us all. So with Jesus, God will surely give us all things.

Who can say God's people are guilty? No one, because Christ Jesus died, but he was also raised from the dead, and now he is on God's right side, appealing to God for us.

But in all these things we are completely victorious through God who showed his love for us.

It is not that God failed to keep his promise to them. But only some of the people of Israel are truly God's people,

and only some of Abraham's descendants are true children of Abraham. But God said to Abraham: "The descendants I promised you will be from Isaac."

But before the two boys were born, God told Rebekah, "The older will serve the younger." This was before the boys had done anything good or bad. God said this so that the one chosen 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 he did.

As the Scripture says, "I loved Jacob, but I hated Esau."

It is the same way with God. He wanted to show his anger and to let people see his power. But he patiently stayed with those people he was angry with—people who were made ready to be destroyed.

and we are those people whom God called. He called us not from the Jews only but also from those who are not Jews.

"They were called, ‘You are not my people,' but later they will be called ‘children of the living God.'" Hosea 1:10

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