Read Romans 8:12-25

Read Romans 8:12-25

12 So then, my brothers and sisters, we have an obligation, but it is not to live as our human nature wants us to. ¹³For if you live according to your human nature, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you put to death your sinful actions, you will live. ¹⁴Those who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s children. ¹⁵For the Spirit that God has given you does not make you slaves and cause you to be afraid; instead, the Spirit makes you God’s children, and by the Spirit’s power we cry out to God, “Father! my Father!” ¹⁶God’s Spirit joins himself to our spirits to declare that we are God’s children. ¹⁷Since we are his children, we will possess the blessings he keeps for his people, and we will also possess with Christ what God has kept for him; for if we share Christ’s suffering, we will also share his glory.

18 I consider that what we suffer at this present time cannot be compared at all with the glory that is going to be revealed to us. ¹⁹All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children. ²⁰For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. Yet there was the hope ²¹that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God. ²²For we know that up to the present time all of creation groans with pain, like the pain of childbirth. ²³But it is not just creation alone which groans; we who have the Spirit as the first of God’s gifts also groan within ourselves, as we wait for God to make us his children and^k set our whole being free. ²⁴For it was by hope that we were saved; but if we see what we hope for, then it is not really hope. For which of us hopes for something we see? ²⁵But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Think

"...we wait for God to make us his children and set our whole being free." - Romans 8:23

In these chapters from Romans Paul helps us to understand that God is at work in us, setting us free from sin, making us more like Jesus.  Children of God who bear a family resemblance to him.

Pray

Lord, with creation, I groan within myself as I long for you to finish the work of making me more like you.

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¹⁵ 8.15–17: Ga 4:5–7
8.15: Mk 14:35; Ga 4:6

¹⁶ 8.15–17: Ga 4:5–7

¹⁷ 8.15–17: Ga 4:5–7

²⁰ 8.20: Gn 3:17–19

²³ 8.23: 2 Co 5:2–4

^k Some manuscripts do not have make us his children and.