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Today, we wrap up the Romans 6, 7, and 8 study. I can officially say this is the shortest and longest Bible study I've ever written in my dozen years of blogging. Holy cow. I published the first Romans post on April 30, and we've only made it through three chapters in eight months. I'd love to say it's because we went super deep, but it was more that Tiffany went super slow. As I ponder 2022, this was a year for the books. I left my corporate fintech career of nearly 20 years, went to Brooklyn to run a different fintech company, added three girls to our household through fostering (for a total of 9 in our family now), and I got in some naps. And I super overdid it on my coffee addiction. Wowza.
It was a year of soul work. Wordless groans. Wrestling with Christ. Coming to the end of myself. Thinking I had given it all up wholly, only to find out there was more to give. I grappled with dwelling. I struggled to sit still. Yet, somewhere in it all, hope sprung from the ashes.
Sometimes the best race in life is simply the one you finish. And I'm grateful that I finished another year stronger and wiser than the year before.
As I write the last of the commentary of Romans 8:31-39, I find it providential that we're simultaneously ending this chapter, this study, and this year. But, of course, I didn't orchestrate this timing. So, once again, the Maker of time and the One outside of time delivered impeccably.
More Than Conquerors
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
There are seasons in life when it feels as though God is against us—punishing us, holding us back, and working against the grain of what is supposed to be an easy task. If you were to read the first few chapters of Romans, it could feel like that. But God, through the Apostle Paul, goes to a great extent in Romans to show how He saved us (see chapters 6, 7, and 8 again). And not just an eternal saving but the victory of sin and death.
When life pushes against you, rest in the Truth that God is for you. You are God's love, and that is unchangeable.
32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Verse 32 is a fitting one in this season of giving. The idea here is that if God gave the ultimate gift of His Son, why would we not think He would provide us with the small things? Isaiah 58:11 encourages us in this: "The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail."
33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
It is comforting to know that, as believers, we are secure from being found guilty. Not because of our works but because Messiah fulfilled the Law's requirement. We do not need to fear condemnation because Jesus, a Jew Himself, is our advocate who is interceding for us.
There are certain seasons when, like in verse 35, I feel separated from God's love. But day by day, I grow in learning that my thoughts and my feelings cannot dictate how I live. A friend of mine is reading the Boundaries book. She sent me an excerpt that needs to be inscribed on my heart and not just in the margin of my Bible:
I must stay whole by keeping what I know, what I feel, and what I do in alignment with God's truth about who I am.
"...in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." How is a Christian more than a conqueror? What does it mean to be more in a world that constantly demands more from us? I had to ponder this question because I love to win (particularly in the business world), and it's easy for me to want more. But to be more requires a different posture. To conquer is a temporal feel-good; but people who are more than conquerors can have victory amid the battle. They can see hope when the outcome still seems uncertain. Even when things rage around me, and I feel like I'm screwing it all up, I can rest in knowing that nothing can disrupt how God loves me. His love for me does not depend on my works, worthiness, or goodness. He loves because He is love. And that is enough.
As we neatly wrap up with study, let’s revisit why we started it to begin with. Too often, believers live between Egypt and Canaan — between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. They believe in the cross, but do not enter into the power and glory of the resurrection. They are saved, but not satisfied by the torrents of living water (John 7:38).
We have traversed Romans 6, 7, & 8, and we learned the transformative truth of Colossians 3:1, 3 which says, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above…for you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”
These three chapters in Romans are essential to discovering this hidden life in Christ and how that plays out in your own experience as a believer. They divinely reinforce the (1) nature of God, the (2) fundamentals of the Christian faith, and the (3) application and action of living dead to sin and alive to Christ.
We get exhausted by the struggle of sin in our life, don’t we? Me too. Paul talks about this wrestling in Romans 7:24:
“What a wretched [alternative translation of wretched: exhausted] man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?”
Paul knew the secret to freedom and fulfillment— and that’s why Romans 6, 7, & 8 are worth studying and restudying in your walk with God. I’m thankful to have been given the opportunity to walk this Romans road with you. I know we will all finish well in Him; the One Who saves us from death.
God help me to comprehend what is the length, the breadth, the depth, the height, and to know that love of Christ that God has for me in Him. Amen.