Romans 8 The BIG ?- Is there anything that can take you out of the work?

Scripture selections are taken from the Rock Church Daily Bread Reading schedule for each month. “Lena’s Journalin’” are Lena’s comments on the specific passages from her Daily Journal.

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Romans 8:1-39 -
Life in the Spirit
1So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2For the power F25 of the life-giving Spirit has freed you F26 through Christ Jesus, from the power of sin that leads to death.
3The law of Moses could not save us, because of our sinful nature. But God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 4He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully accomplished for us F27 who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.
5Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. 6If your sinful nature controls your mind, there is death. But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace. 7For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God's laws, and it never will. 8That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
9But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them are not Christians at all.) 10Since Christ lives within you, even though your body will die because of sin, your spirit is alive F28 because you have been made right with God. 11The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as he raised Christ from the dead, he will give life to your mortal body by this same Spirit living within you.
12So, dear brothers and sisters, F29 you have no obligation whatsoever to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. 13For if you keep on following it, you will perish. But if through the power of the Holy Spirit you turn from it F30 and its evil deeds, you will live. 14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children F31 of God.
15So you should not be like cowering, fearful slaves. You should behave instead like God's very own children, adopted into his family F32 —calling him "Father, dear Father." F33 16For his Holy Spirit speaks to us deep in our hearts and tells us that we are God's children. 17And since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.
The Future Glory
18Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. 19For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20Against its will, everything on earth was subjected to God's curse. 21All creation anticipates the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, F34 including the new bodies he has promised us. 24Now that we are saved, we eagerly look forward to this freedom. For if you already have something, you don't need to hope for it. 25But if we look forward to something we don't have yet, we must wait patiently and confidently.
26And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. 27And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will. 28And we know that God causes everything to work together F35 for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn, with many brothers and sisters. 30And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And he gave them right standing with himself, and he promised them his glory.
Nothing Can Separate Us from God's Love
31What can we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 32Since God did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won't God, who gave us Christ, also give us everything else?
33Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? Will God? No! He is the one who has given us right standing with himself. 34Who then will condemn us? Will Christ Jesus? No, for he is the one who died for us and was raised to life for us and is sitting at the place of highest honor next to God, pleading for us.
35Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? 36(Even the Scriptures say, "For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep." F36 ) 37No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
38And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. 39Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
FOOTNOTES: F25: Greek the law; also in 8:2b. F26: Some manuscripts read me. F27: Or accomplished by us. F28: Or the Spirit will bring you eternal life. F29: Greek brothers; also in 8:29. F30: Greek put it to death. F31: Greek sons; also in 8:19. F32: Greek You received a spirit of sonship. F33: Greek "Abba, Father." Abba is an Aramaic term for "father." F34: Greek wait anxiously for sonship. F35: Some manuscripts read And we know that everything works together. F36: Ps 44:22. Copyright Statement: Holy Bible, The New Living Translation

~ Lena’s Journalin’~
The law of Moses could not save man. Have you ever read through the Old Testament requirements, the law of Moses in it’s entirety? It is hard to read it all for about 4 or 5 verses into it one gets to feeling the impossibilities of being able to keep the law. Even just the 10 commandments are hard for any human to get through without seeing our failures and weaknesses.
There is a reason for this extensiveness. It is to show man his great need for God and the only way to God, which is through Christ. Through comparison to the law, even a really good natured man can see he comes short of the glory of God. This has a point to make. Men cannot be what they need to be and are called and designed to be outside of the covering of Christ, Only through His blood can any man be truly saved from the death penalty of sin.
So, knowing this, we see there is hope for a man to be covered in his sin. That covered man is not made perfect to where he’ll never make another mistake or ever miss a mark, but it goes way beyond missing marks, the question becomes - “are you washed and covered by the redeeming blood, no matter what mistakes you make? And do you endeavor to walk in a manner that will please and show gratefulness for the cost involved to pay for that freedom you can enjoy?”
Isn’t it just amazingly awesome to have the covering of the blood of Jesus, and to be called God’s very own child? One has to see that this adoption into God’s family will never be based on how much one deserves it or how well one behaves. There’s no earning of this family position, just faith united with the family plan of God. God planned your life in this time period.
It is so important for ones who are seeing this picture to realize our time here is for a purpose that goes beyond the realization of being a family member with Jesus as our brother. That realization is merely the beginning of an eternal lifetime with our Father God. It starts on earth and will continue someday in heaven. While we are here in the earth realm, we have an assignment from God to spread the good news of the adoption, which is available to anyone who will believe and receive it, and to teach others to preach this same message. If we never got anything we were dreaming for on earth, but we became a participator in making this dream our Father has come true, we will find blessings beyond all measure, both now and later on.
I believe to walk in the spirit, is to walk in tune with that pursuit of God’s dream. To stay in tune with how we can do our part and portion in making it happen. When was the last time you wholeheartedly spent time, effort, money etc, to make another person’s dream come true? If you did, you received a tremendous amount of joy. The joy of the Father God is so great towards those who choose His way when they could and are free to choose their own ways.
What is completely amazing is God already knows what our dreams in life are. When He sees we are in hot pursuit of His dreams more than we are in pursuit of our own dreams, He is turned on! He wants ours to come true, and guess what? He’s the only one that can make it happen anyway!
We’ll suffer and toil and live and work hard to pursue our own dreams, they are that important to us. Even having a natural baby is painful, takes work and then to raise it is a whole ‘nother thing. We’re willing to do that for our own plans in life, what about God’s? Is His dream that important to us? That we’d work hard for it, spend money on it, toil, sweat, take extra time, etc?
When we walk in the spirit, we do not fulfill the lusts- passions and desires of the flesh.
Ok, so we may get a hold of the pursuit of God’s dream as a good idea, now how bold will we be about its execution?
Do you realize when man pursues his own dreams and never goes after God’s, when man suffers for self, and lives for self, when man will not speak up for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the earth actually suffers? Do you realize that many of the sufferings of the earth can be rectified through an obedient people? Every time a man begins to turn and fulfill the destiny of God, as an active participator in the divine plan, a piece of earth is redeemed. The earth is groaning, shaking, saying- “Please people, please rise up while there is still time to, and speak boldly as you were destined and created to speak. Don’t pursue your own dream, lay your dream down and pursue God’s dream! Please people, don’t you know when you make God’s dream come true, all of yours will just happen?”
Earthquakes, wars, storms, volcanoes, tsunamis, terrorist attacks, are all groanings…
God gave each believer a supernatural ability, to be able to speak as the spirit speaks and proclaim what the spirit desires to proclaim. It is an awesome response-ability(I wrote it that way on purpose!), for a man, any man, or a group of people, to execute the plans of God. How can one know how and what to do without the Divine help of God? We’ve been given the spirit of Christ and God. We’ve been given the spirit without measure. We can have and use as much as we want. He is available for the takers, those who desire Him and His Divine help can have as much as they want!
Esther chapter 1 says the king prepared a banquet, told servants to set tables up with unceasing amounts of food and a bottomless wine vats. He said anyone can come as often as they want, they are welcomed to come. They can eat and drink all they want. But they won’t be forced to come eat and drink, they can starve and die of thirst if they choose to, but there’s plemty available for those who want to come eat and drink.
We have access to God’s word (food-bread), very easy access in our world as it is now. We can have as much as we want, and we have access to God’s spirit (wine). We can eat and drink at anytime of the day or night, as much as we want, and as much as we want His plan to happen will be as much as we partake of, for we must eat and drink for strength to do the will of the Lord. How much of the will do we want? Do we want to be like the sole beneficiary in a family? That is dependant upon how much we ate and drank. We can say we want it all day long, but how much we really want is shown to God in how much we prepare by eating and drinking!
Now this is the big question from this passage:
Can anything separate you from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus? Can death (of a loved one) or life (and all of its toil and pain), can a principality, an evil work, an evil spirit’s work, separate you from walking in the way of love, walking in the pursuit of God’s will? Will anything in life or death stop you from walking in faith in Christ? Anything? Think about it. Can anything at all separate you out of the way of God’s Divine love and of your active participation in the unfolding of His eternal plan while you’re still able to be a part of its fulfillment on earth?
Is there anything at all that can make you stop loving God or loving people or pursuing His will? I don’t mean agreeing that His will is good and that it is good to win souls or it is good to go to church. I mean is there anything that can make you not participate in going after and the active doing of His will?
It is a pivotal question to ask. Can offense in church do it? Can things that don’t go your way do it? Can pressure and stress take you out? If any of this stuff can, the earth will groan, till it about explodes from being so shut up with unfulfilled purpose, it cannot contain the pain of. It would be like a woman in transition about to push out the baby, but no one will have it, or let it come out, in fact people hold it back from coming out.
That’s the groaning that’s going on! That baby will come out or that baby and that woman will die and it’s God’s baby and God’s woman and He won’t let her and them die, so others will die instead, if the purpose of God is not assumed responsibility of and invited and helped to come forth through the participation of human people like you and me.


Daily Repetitive Verses -
John 17:15 I'm not asking you to take them out of the world but to protect them from the evil one.