Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Take a breath, find your place, and read deeply. Discover the joy of reading God’s word with the Immerse New Living Translation (NLT) Bible.
This daily Bible podcast will take you through the Bible in a year following the Immerse Bible Reading Experience. So grab your family and small group and go through the Bible in a year together with Immerse. Each of the 6 volumes is available online or at your favorite Christian bookstore.
Henry: Welcome To Immerse: The
Daily Bible Reading Experience.
Day 31
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?
Who dares accuse us whom
God has chosen for his own?
No one.
For God himself has given us
right standing with himself
who then will condemn us.
No one for Christ.
Jesus died for us and was raised to life
for us, and he is sitting in the place of
honor at God's right hand pleading for us.
Can anything ever separate
us from Christ's love?
Does it mean he no longer loves us?
If we have trouble or calamity or
are persecuted or hungry or destitute
or in danger or threatened with
death, as the scriptures say, for
your sake, we are killed every day,
we are being slaughtered like sheep.
No, despite all these things,
overwhelming victory is ours through
Christ who loved us, and I am convinced.
That nothing can ever separate us from
God's love, neither death nor life.
Neither angels nor demons,
neither our fears for today,
nor our worries about tomorrow.
Not even the powers of Hell can
separate us from God's love.
No power in the sky above
or in the earth below.
Indeed, nothing in all creation
will ever be able to separate
us from the love of God.
That is revealed in Christ Jesus,
our Lord, with Christ as my witness,
I speak with utter truthfulness.
My conscience and the
Holy Spirit confirm it.
My heart is filled with bitter sorrow
and unending grief for my people.
My Jewish brothers and sisters.
I would be willing to be
forever cursed, cut off from
Christ if that would save them.
They are the people of Israel
chosen to be God's adopted children.
God revealed his glory to them.
He made covenants with
them and gave them his law.
He gave them the privilege of worshiping
him and receiving his wonderful promises.
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are
their ancestors, and Christ
himself was an Israelite as far
as his human nature is concerned.
He is God, the one who
rules over everything and
is worthy of eternal praise.
Amen.
Well then, has God failed to
fulfill his promise to Israel?
No, for not all who are born
into the nation of Israel are
truly members of God's people.
Being descendants of Abraham doesn't
make them truly Abraham's children.
For the scriptures say, Isaac
is the son through whom your
descendants will be counted.
Though Abraham had other children
too, this means that Abraham's
physical descendants are not
necessarily children of God.
Only the children of the promise are
considered to be Abraham's children.
For God had promised I will
return about this time next
year and Sarah will have a son.
This son was our ancestor Isaac.
When he married Rebecca, she gave birth
to twins, but before they were born,
before they had done anything good or
bad, she received a message from God.
This message shows that God chooses
people according to his own purposes.
He calls people but not according
to their good or bad works.
She was told Your older son
will serve your younger son.
In the words of the scriptures, I
loved Jacob, but I rejected Esau.
Are we saying then that God was unfair?
Of course not.
For God said to Moses, I will show
mercy to anyone I choose and I will
show compassion to anyone I choose.
So it is God who decides to show mercy.
We can neither choose it nor work for it.
For the scriptures say that God told
Pharaoh, I have appointed you for the very
purpose of displaying my power in you and
to spread my fame throughout the earth.
So you see, God chooses to show
mercy to some I, and he chooses
to harden the hearts of others,
so they refuse to listen well.
Then you might say, why does God
blame people for not responding?
Haven't they simply done
what he makes them do?
No, don't say that.
Who are you a mere human
being to argue with.
God should the thing that was created
say to the one who created it.
Why have you made me like this?
When a potter makes jars out of
clay, doesn't he have a right
to use the same lump of clay to
make one jar for decoration and
another to throw garbage into?
In the same way, even though God
has the right to show his anger
and his power, he is very patient
with those on whom his anger falls,
who are destined for destruction.
He does this to make the
riches of his glory shine.
He even brighter on those to whom
he shows mercy, who were prepared
in advance for glory, and we are
among those whom he selected both
from the Jews and from the Gentiles.
Concerning the Gentiles.
God says, in the prophecy of Hosea,
those who were not my people, I will
now call my people and I will love
those whom I did not love before.
And then at the place where they were
told, you are not my people, there they
will be called Children of the Living God.
And concerning Israel, Isaiah
the prophet, cried out.
Though the people of Israel are as
numerous as the sand of the seashore,
only a remnant will be saved for the
Lord will carry out his sentence upon
the earth quickly and with finality.
And Isaiah said the same
thing in another place.
If the Lord of heaven's armies had
not spared a few of our children,
we would've been wiped out like
Sodom, destroyed like Gomorrah.
What does all this mean?
Even though the Gentiles were not
trying to follow God's standards,
they were made right with God, and
it was by faith that this took place.
But the people of Israel who tried
so hard to get right with God by
keeping the law never succeeded.
Why not?
Because they were trying to get
right with God by keeping the law
instead of by trusting in him.
They stumbled over the
Great rock in their path.
God warned them of this in the
scriptures when he said, I am placing
a stone in Jerusalem that makes people
stumble, a rock that makes them fall.
But anyone who trusts in
him will never be disgraced.
Dear brothers and sisters, the longing
of my heart and my prayer to God is
for the people of Israel to be saved.
I know what enthusiasm they have for God.
It has misdirected zeal for they
don't understand God's way of
making people right with himself,
refusing to accept God's way.
They cling to their own way of getting
right with God by trying to keep the
law for Christ has already accomplished
the purpose for which the law was given.
As a result, all who believe
in him are made right with God.
For Moses writes that the law's way of
making a person right with God requires
obedience to all of its commands.
But faith's way of getting right with
God says, don't say in your heart who
will go up to heaven to bring Christ
down to earth, and don't say who
will go down to the place of the dead
to bring Christ back to life again.
In fact, it says the message
is very close at hand.
It is on your lips and in your
heart, and that message is the very
message about faith that we preach.
If you openly declare that Jesus is
Lord and believe in your heart that
God raised him from the dead, you
will be saved for it is by believing
in your heart that you are made
right with God, and it is by openly
declaring your faith that you are saved.
As the scriptures tell us, anyone who
trusts in him will never be disgraced.
Jew and Gentile are the
same in this respect.
They have the same Lord who gives
generously to all who call on him.
For everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord will be saved, but how can they call
on him to save them unless they believe
in him, and how can they believe in him?
If they have never heard about him,
and how can they hear about him unless
someone tells them, and how will anyone
go and tell them without being sent?
That is why the scriptures say,
how beautiful are the feet of
messengers who bring good news?
But not everyone welcomes the good news.
For Isaiah, the prophet said,
Lord, who has believed our message?
So faith comes from hearing.
That is hearing the
good news about Christ.
But I ask, have the people of
Israel actually heard the message?
Yes, they have.
The message has gone throughout the
earth and the words to all the world.
But I ask, did the people
of Israel really understand?
Yes, they did.
For even in the time of Moses, God
said, I will rouse your jealousy through
people who are not even a nation.
I will provoke your anger
through the foolish Gentiles.
And later Isaiah spoke boldly for
God, saying I was found by people
who were not looking for me.
I showed myself to those
who were not asking for me.
Regarding Israel.
God said all day long.
I opened my arms to them, but they
were disobedient and rebellious.
I ask then, has God rejected his
own people, the nation of Israel?
Of course not.
I myself am an Israelite, a
descendant of Abraham and a
member of the tribe of Benjamin.
No, God has not rejected his own people
whom He chose from the very beginning.
Do you realize what the
scriptures say about this?
Elijah?
The prophet complained to God
about the people of Israel and
said, Lord, they have killed your
prophets and torn down your altars.
I am the only one left and now
they're trying to kill me too.
And you remember God's reply he said.
No, I have 7,000 others who
have never bowed down to bail.
It is the same today for a few of
the people of Israel have remained
faithful because of God's grace, his
undeserved kindness in choosing them.
And since it is through God's kindness,
then it is not by their good works.
For, in that case, God's grace
would not be what it really is.
Free and undeserved.
So this is the situation.
Most of the people of Israel
have not found the favor of God.
They're looking for so earnestly.
A few have the ones God has chosen, but
the hearts of the rest were hardened.
As the scriptures say God has put them
into a deep sleep, to this day, he has
shut their eyes so they do not see and
closed their ears, so they do not hear.
Likewise, David said, let their
bountiful table become a snare, a trap
that makes them think all is well.
Let their blessings cause them to stumble
and let them get what they deserve.
Let their eyes go blind so they cannot
see and let their backs be bent forever.
Did God's people stumble
and fall beyond recovery?
Of course not.
They were disobedient.
So God made salvation available
to the Gentiles, but he wanted
his own people to become jealous
and claim it for themselves.
Now, if the Gentiles were enriched
because the people of Israel turned
down God's offer of salvation, think
how much greater a blessing the world
will share when they finally accept it.
I am saying all this,
especially for you, Gentiles.
God has appointed me as the
apostle to the Gentiles.
I stress this.
For, I want somehow to make the people of
Israel jealous of what you Gentiles have,
so I might save some of them for, since
their rejection meant that God offered
salvation to the rest of the world, their
acceptance will be even more wonderful.
It will be life for those who were
dead, and since Abraham and the
other patriarchs were holy, their
descendants will also be holy.
Just as the entire batch of dough is
holy because the portion given as an
offering is holy for if the roots of the
tree are holy, the branches will be too.
But some of these branches from
Abraham's Tree, some of the people of
Israel have been broken off, and you
Gentiles, who were branches from a
wild olive tree had been grafted in.
So now you also receive the blessing God
has promised Abraham and his children
sharing in the rich nourishment from
the root of God's special olive tree.
But you must not brag about
being grafted in to replace the
branches that were broken off.
You are just a branch, not the root.
Well, you may say those branches
were broken off to make room for me.
Yes, but remember those branches
were broken off because they
didn't believe in Christ, and you
are there because you do believe.
So don't think highly of yourself,
but fear what could happen for if God
did not spare the original branches.
He won't spare you either.
Notice how God is both kind and severe.
He is severe toward those who
disobeyed, but kind to you if you
continue to trust in his kindness.
But if you stop trusting,
you also will be cut off.
And if the people of Israel turn from
their unbelief, they will be grafted
in again, for God has the power
to graft them back into the tree.
You by nature, were a branch
cut from a wild olive tree.
So if God was willing to do something
contrary to nature by grafting you into
his cultivated tree, he will be far more
eager to graft the original branches
back into the tree where they belong.
I want you to understand this mystery,
dear brothers and sisters, so that you
will not feel proud about yourselves.
Some of the people of Israel have hard
hearts, but this will last only until the
full number of Gentiles comes to Christ.
And so all Israel will be
saved as the scriptures say.
The one who rescues will come
from Jerusalem and he will turn
Israel away from ungodliness.
And this is my covenant with them
that I will take away their sins.
Many of the people of Israel
are now enemies of the good news
and this benefits you Gentiles.
Yet they are still the people he loves.
Because he chose their ancestors,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for God's gifts
and his call can never be withdrawn.
Once you, Gentiles were rebels
against God, but when the people
of Israel rebelled against
him, God was merciful to you.
Instead, now they are the rebels and
God's mercy has come to you so that
they too will share in God's mercy.
For God has imprisoned everyone
in disobedience so he could
have mercy on everyone.
Oh, how great are God's riches
and wisdom and knowledge?
How impossible it is for us to understand
his decisions and his ways for who can
know the Lord's thoughts, who knows enough
to give him advice, and who has given
him so much that he needs to pay it back?
For everything comes from him and
exists by his power and is intended for
his glory, all glory to him forever.
Amen.
This concludes today's
Immer reading experience.
Thank you for joining us.