ROMANS 8:20-39 The Message

You’re in for a long passage of scriputre if you keep reading… hold on, it will only take about 30 seconds and I’ll meet you on the other side of it.. Here we go….

20 Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in

21 until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.

22 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs.

23 These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance.

24 That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us.

25 But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.

26 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans.

27 He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God.

28 That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

29 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.

30 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.

31 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?

32 If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?

33 And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen?

34 Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us – who was raised to life for us! – is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.

35 Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:

36 They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

37 None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us.

38 I’m absolutely convinced that nothing – nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow,

39 high or low, thinkable or unthinkable – absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

That was a lot to read, I know. As I careful navigate what is on my heart today, I say, without any political interest or care; We in America have it much better than most of us realize. We live in a period of time that generations craved and desired. The passion and desire to create a computer so large it was contained in huge buildings on many floors, now what you have in your hand reading this or at your lap or desk is more powerful than anyone then could ever have imagined. We are now complacent in our success. So much so we miss what is going on around us. The image I show at the top of this message today is a one of the comfortable pictures to see on a train called the TRAIN OF DEATH I found. This train is boarded by desperate and hopeful people to find freedom. So desperate, they would leave everything they know behind for a chance. A chance for freedom.

In the midst of that journey, people are met with evil beyond your comprehension. Things that a human would willing do to another for personal gain. Things I shake to even consider writing today.

We live in a fallen world. Confused. Drunk on ourselves. It doesn’t seem the soberness comes into our lives fully until they are violently disrupted. I know.

Jesus knew that about us. Yet, He willingly boarded a train much worse for YOU.

Yeah, I know, in America that is easy to write, a quick moment to agree and off we go to our regular lives. Meanwhile, around the corner from you, perhaps even next door, someone is dying.

I know this is hard today. I am compelled. I am overwhelmed at thought of what more we can be and what more we can do. Over 75% of America claims to be a Christian. 75%!! I can’t shake that thought the past few weeks.

It that is so, why are we so lost and broken as a country? Why does evil spread so easily in our communities and our schools? How can thousands of young boys and girls.. think of that??!! I am a dad… I have a teenager and one headed there shortly,

A report from Ark Of Hope recently reported:

4.5 Million of trafficked persons are sexually exploited. Up to 300,000 Americans under 18 are lured into the commercial sex trade every year. From 14,500 – 17,500 of those victims are trafficked into the United States each year. Jul 30, 2017

I could write for days about this. The point. We have a real problem in our land friends. It is called sin. Separation from God. Missing the mark. Watching out for number 1. A lot went into our freedom. A lot went into our rescue. Now that we are rescued.. How do we live?

I made a promise to myself when I had brain surgery that I would never forget. Forget what? What I felt. The reality of life and my own train of death.

Friends, we are going to see an increase in evil. Evil will be called good. It already is and will get worse before it gets “normal”.

DON’T FORGET. Live for Him. You have been rescued!! So have I. We have a hope better than any hope on this planet. We have a way of freedom that can never be given like it was given through Christ. I can’t express how much I burn inside to share that hope. 

If you have made it this far, I pray that you and I both press closer. Closer to truth and farther from what is being expressed in a lost and dying world. Reveal Hope! Share Christ. Live like you mean it, never forget and never give up!!!! You have a hope, and Christ revealed it:

#GODSGOTTHIS

 

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