More Romans (finally)

I left off with Chapter 5 last time.

6:11-13  From now on, think of it this way:  Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word.  You are dead to sin and alive to God.  That's what Jesus did.  That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives.  Don't give it the time of day.  Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life.  Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time--remember, you've been raised from the dead!--into God's way of doing things.

7:21-25  The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.  I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight.  Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.  I've tried everything and nothing helps.  I'm at the end of my rope.  Is there no one who can do anything for me?  Isn't that the real question?  The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does.  He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

8:5-6  Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life.  Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them--living and breathing God!  Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.

8:29-31  God knew what he was doing from the very beginning.  He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son.  The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored.  We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him.  After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name.  After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself.  And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.  So, what do you think?  With God on our side like this, how can we lose?

Perfect place to stop and reflect....