"You're so hard on yourself. But remember, everyone has a chapter they don't read out loud. Take a moment. Sit back. Marvel at your life. At the mistakes that gave you wisdom, at the suffering that gave you strength. Despite everything, you still move forward and continue to persevere. Remember, no matter how dark it gets, the sun will rise again." 

Author Unknown

We are heading into the last chapter of this specific study series – Romans 8, which focuses on a new and wonderful life in the Spirit.

As a quick recap, Romans 6, 7, and 8 are about sanctification (fancy word for “holy” or being “set apart”). It’s broken out as such:

·        Victory: the Flesh (Romans 6)

·        Liberty: the Law (Romans 7)

·        Security: the Spirit (Romans 8)

When I choose to write a specific Bible study, it’s not by happenstance or some random idea. In the 14 or so Bible studies I’ve written with over 100 individual posts, each had a pre-stirring in my heart before I wrote the first sentence. Romans 6, 7, and 8 was no different.

I wrote Wordless Groans earlier this year, which was one of my most deeply sacred and meaningful posts. It was written at a juncture in my personal life and career that bore a great deal of disruption. In some respects, I am not sure the disorder has calmed much, but I can say I am learning to trust Jesus and His Word more than I trust my own perceptions, skills, and feelings. Not perfectly, but with inconsistent consistency. Sunrise after sunrise, I am learning to move forward.

In all actuality, I am struggling deeply. In some way, I feel I have lived Romans 6 and 7 repeatedly these last months. And, despite how Romans 8 – a message of freedom and fulfillment – is rooted in the life in the Spirit, the indwelling sin of my life has been primary.

But I am reminded this evening, of my Sin Slayer, Jesus. I am reminded that my life is redeemed, and the Lord gets the final say. I am reminded that I am not disqualified but am called to keep running the race. Today, I thought of the Scottish preacher George H. Morrison who said (and others have said also), “The victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings,” and he was right. But I am also prompted with Warren Wiersbe who said, “It is a sin to disobey God and fall, but it is also a sin to stay fallen. We must always make a new beginning…”

So, today, I choose to make a new beginning. Not because I can wish it into existence or structure it into my life or make it happen through my own power. But because I know the One who can and does and did. Today I choose to stand in His Truth, regardless of how I feel or the discouragement I experienced the many dark nights before. And I pray you’ll do the same alongside me. We will experience wordless groans in life, but what a comfort to know that in our weakness, He is perfect. Satan has his custom-made plan of attack for you, beloved. But the Lord will fight for you. Let us be still in His presence as we study, line upon line, the freeing Word of God.

As we start studying Romans 8, we’re going to take a different approach. Over the next few days here and there, I will send a different translation of Romans 8 via email. Sit down and read it out loud. The next day will be Romans 8 again, in a different translation. Read it out loud. Read it again and again, and then meet me back here next week as we study its healing and victorious layers and allow the Spirit to work.

Romans 8

1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.

14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Present Suffering and Future Glory

18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that[h] the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[i] have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

More Than Conquerors

31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 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? 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.