Morning Prayer: 21 August – Romans 8:31-32 ~ God’s love: 5 unanswerable questions (Q 1 & 2)

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 8:31-32 (NLT)

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?
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Reflection: Romans 8:31-32 (John Stott, The Message of Romoans: God’s Good News for the World)

God’s Spirit in God’s children (8:1–39)

The Christian life is essentially life in the Spirit, that is to say, a life which is animated, sustained, directed and enriched by the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit true Christian discipleship would be inconceivable, indeed impossible.

(vs 28–39) The steadfastness of God’s love

Our Christian hope is solidly grounded on the unwavering love of God…. The eternal security of God’s people, on account of the eternal unchangeability of God’s purpose, …is itself due to the eternal steadfastness of God’s love.

(vs 31–39) Five unanswerable questions

Paul introduces the last nine verses of this chapter with… ‘what is there left to say?’(JBP), or ‘what can we add?’(JB).

The apostle’s answer to his own question is to ask five more questions, to which there is no answer…. For no-one and nothing can harm the people whom God has foreknown, predestined, called, justified and glorified.

Question 1: If God is for us, who can be against us? ( 31b ).

Paul is not saying that the claim ‘God is for us’ can be made by everybody…. On the contrary, the situation Paul envisages is one in which ‘God is for us’, since he has foreknown, predestined, called, justified and glorified us. This being so, who can be against us? To that question there is no answer. All the powers of hell may set themselves together against us. But they can never prevail, since God is on our side.

Question 2: 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? ( 32 ).

The way Paul phrases his question… points us to the cross…. God has already given us his Son…. Paul argues…that since God has already given us the supreme and costliest gift of his own Son, ‘how can he fail to lavish every other gift upon us?’(REB). In giving his Son he gave everything. The cross is the guarantee of the continuing, unfailing generosity of God.
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Canticle

Christ, as a light illumine and guide me. Christ, as a shield overshadow me. Christ under me; Christ over me; Christ beside me on my left and my right. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Be in the heart of each to whom I speak; in the mouth of each who speaks unto me. This day be within and without me, lowly and meek, yet all-powerful. Christ as a light; Christ as a shield; Christ beside me on my left and my right.

Blessing

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you, wherever He may send you. May He guide you through the wilderness, protect you through the storm. May He bring you home rejoicing at the wonders He has shown you. May He bring you home rejoicing once again into our doors.

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 20 August – Romans 8:29-30 ~ God’s love: 5 undeniable affirmations

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 8:29-30 (NLT)

For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
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Reflection: Romans 8:29-30 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

God’s Spirit in God’s children (8:1–39)

(vs 28–39) The steadfastness of God’s love

(vs 29– 30) Five undeniable affirmations

In these two verses Paul elaborates what he meant in verse 28 by God’s ‘purpose’, according to which he has called us and is working everything together for our good. He traces God’s good and saving purpose through five stages from its beginning in his mind to its consummation in the coming glory. These stages he names foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification and glorification.

1. God foreknew.

The Hebrew verb ‘to know’ expresses much more than mere intellectual cognition; it denotes a personal relationship of care and affection… The meaning of ‘foreknowledge’ in the New Testament is similar.

John Murray writes: ‘ “Know” …is used in a sense practically synonymous with “love”…“Whom he foreknew” …is therefore virtually equivalent to “whom he foreloved”. Foreknowledge is ‘sovereign, distinguishing love’.

The only source of divine election and predestination is divine love.

2. God predestined.

A decision is involved in the process of becoming a Christian, but it is God’s decision before it can be ours. This is not to deny that we ‘decided for Christ’, and freely, but to affirm that we did so only because he had first ‘decided for us’.

C. J. Vaughan sums the issue up in these words: Everyone who is eventually saved can only ascribe his salvation, from the first step to the last, to God’s favor and act. Human merit must be excluded: and this can only be by tracing back the work far beyond the obedience which evidences, or even the faith which appropriates, salvation; even to an act of spontaneous favor on the part of that God who foresees and foreordains from eternity all his works.

Neither Scripture nor experience allows us to weaken this teaching.

3. God called.

The call of God is the historical application of his eternal predestination. His call comes to people through the gospel, and it is when the gospel is preached to them with power, and they respond to it with the obedience of faith, that we know God has chosen them. So evangelism (the preaching of the gospel), far from being rendered superfluous by God’s predestination, is indispensable, because it is the very means God has ordained by which his call comes to his people and awakens their faith.

4. God justified.

God’s effective call enables those who hear it to believe, and those who believe are justified by faith…. Justification is more than forgiveness or acquittal or even acceptance; it is a declaration that we sinners are now righteous in God’s sight, because of his conferment upon us of a righteous status, which is indeed the righteousness of Christ himself.

He became sin with our sin, so that we might become righteous with his righteousness.

5. God glorified.

Our destiny is to be given new bodies in a new world, both of which will be transfigured with the glory of God…. The process of sanctification is implied… both in the allusion to our being conformed to the image of Christ and as the necessary preliminary to our glorification. For ‘sanctification is glory begun; glory is sanctification consummated’.
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Here then is the apostle’s series of five undeniable affirmations. God is pictured as moving irresistibly from stage to stage; from an eternal foreknowledge and predestination, through a historical call and justification, to a final glorification of his people in a future eternity. It resembles a chain of five links, each of which is unbreakable.
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Canticle

Blessing

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 19 August – Romans 8:28 ~ God’s love: 5 unshakeable convictions

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 8:28 (NLT)

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
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Reflection: Romans 8:28 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

God’s Spirit in God’s children (8:1–39)

(vs 28–39) The steadfastness of God’s love

(vs 28) Five unshakeable convictions

First, we know that God works, or is at work, in our lives…. He is ceaselessly, energetically and purposefully active on their behalf.
Secondly, God is at work for the good of his people. Being himself wholly good, his works are all expressions of his goodness and are calculated to advance his people’s good.
Thirdly, God works for our good in all things…. All that is negative in this life [has] a positive purpose in the execution of God’s eternal plan. Nothing is beyond the overruling, overriding scope of his providence.
Fourthly, God works in all things for the good of those who love him. This is a necessary limitation…. If the ‘good’ which is God’s objective is our completed salvation, then its beneficiaries are his people who are described as those who love him.
Fifthly, those who love God are also described as those who have been called according to his purpose…. So God has a saving purpose, and is working in accordance with it. Life is not the random mess which it may sometimes appear.

We do not always understand what God is doing, let alone welcome it. Nor are we told that he is at work for our comfort. But we know that in all things he is working towards our supreme good.
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Canticle

Blessing

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 18 August – Romans 8:26-27 ~ the Spirit’s intercession

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 8:26-27 (NLT)

And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And 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.
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Reflection: Romans 8:26-27 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

God’s Spirit in God’s children (8:1–39)

(vs 18–27) The glory of God’s children

‘Suffering and glory’ is the theme throughout this section: first the sufferings and glory of God’s creation (19–22) and then the sufferings and glory of God’s children (23–27).

(vs 26-27) Prayer and the Ministry of the Holy Spirit

Christian prayer is in itself an essentially trinitarian exercise. It is access to the Father through the Son and by the Spirit. The inspiration of the Spirit is just as necessary for our prayers as the mediation of the Son. We can approach the Father only through the Son and only by the Spirit.

In general, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, that is, in the ambiguity and frailty of our ‘already-not yet’ existence. In particular, he helps our weakness in prayer. In this sphere our infirmity is our ignorance: We do not know what we ought to pray for. But he knows what we do not know. In consequence, the Spirit himself intercedes for us.

Thus ‘the children of God have two divine intercessors’, writes John Murray. ‘Christ is their intercessor in the court of heaven …,’while ‘the Holy Spirit is their intercessor in the theatre of their own hearts.’

Why do we not know what to pray for? Perhaps because we are unsure whether to pray for deliverance from our sufferings or for strength to endure them. Also, since we do not know what we will be, or when or how, we are in no position to make precise requests. So the Spirit intercedes for us, and does so with speechless groans…. The Holy Spirit identifies with our groans, with the pain of the world and the church, and shares in the longing for the final freedom of both. We and he groan together.

So three persons are involved in our praying. First, we ourselves in our weakness do not know what to pray for. Secondly, the indwelling Spirit helps us by interceding for us and through us, with speechless groans but according to God’s will. Thirdly, God the Father, who both searches our hearts and knows the Spirit’s mind, hears and answers accordingly.
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Sanctify – Annie Karto

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Canticle

Blessing

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Morning Prayer: 17 August – Romans 8:18-25 ~ patient expectancy

Reading through Romans

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Opening sentence

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ, King of endless glory. You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.
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A reading from Romans: Romans 8:18-25 (NLT)

Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.)
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Reflection: Romans 8:18-25 (John Stott, The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World)

God’s Spirit in God’s children (8:1–39)

(vs 18–27) The glory of God’s children

‘Suffering and glory’ is the theme throughout this section: first the sufferings and glory of God’s creation (19–22) and then the sufferings and glory of God’s children (23–27).

First, the sufferings and the glory belong together indissolubly. They did in the experience of Christ; they do in the experience of his people also (17)…. Sufferings and the glory are married; they cannot be divorced. They are welded; they cannot be broken apart.

There is therefore going to be both continuity and discontinuity in the regeneration of the world, as in the resurrection of the body. The universe is not going to be destroyed, but rather liberated, transformed and suffused with the glory of God.

Secondly, the sufferings and the glory characterize the two ages or aeons. The contrast between this age and the age to come, and so between the present and the future, between the already and the not yet, is neatly summed up in the two terms…. Moreover, the ‘sufferings’ include not only the opposition of the world, but all our human frailty as well, both physical and moral, which is due to our provisional, half-saved condition. The ‘glory’, however, is the unutterable splendour of God, eternal, immortal and incorruptible.

Thirdly, the sufferings and the glory cannot be compared…. They need to be contrasted, not compared…. The magnificence of God’s revealed glory will greatly surpass the unpleasantness of our [present] sufferings.

Fourthly, the sufferings and the glory concern both God’s creation and God’s children…. The sufferings and glory of the old creation (the material order) and of the new (the people of God) are integrally related to each other. Both creations are suffering and groaning now; both are going to be set free together…. As nature shared in the curse, and now shares in the pain, so it will also share in the glory. Hence the creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.

May God give us a patient eagerness and an eager patience as we wait for his promises to be fulfilled!
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