TODAY IN THE WORD

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 3:21-31
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace.z - Romans 3:23-24
TODAY IN THE WORD
Walter Reed, a surgeon in the U.S. Army, went to Cuba in 1900 as the head of a commission assigned to investigate an epidemic of yellow fever among American troops. Several doctors and soldiers volunteered to be infected with yellow fever germs to help find the cause of the disease, and two men died in the process. But Reed’s medical experiments proved that yellow fever was spread by a certain mosquito. It was the medical breakthrough that led to the control of the disease.

Walter Reed’s experience is an example of the sacrifice of life to deliver others from death. The human race was infected with the disease of sin, which always results in death (Rom. 6:23). God gave Israel His law, but the law has no power to save. Instead, it was given for the purpose of making people conscious of their sin (Rom. 3:20).

So God had to act “apart from law” to provide salvation for sinful people, and do so without compromising His holiness or justice, or minimizing the penalty for sin. Only our infinite God could have solved this problem, and He did it by offering His own Son in payment for sin.

Verses 21-26 of today’s reading contain some of the best news you’ll ever read in Scripture. To give you some idea of what God has done for us in Christ, let’s consider just three crucial words Paul uses to describe salvation.

First, the sacrificial death of Christ “justified” us in God’s eyes (v. 24). This is a legal term meaning to be “declared righteous.” It’s when a guilty person in a courtroom has his sentence reversed and the crime removed from his record.

Paul also uses the term “redemption” (v. 24) to explain what Christ’s death did for us. This word indicates a ransom paid to release someone from bondage. Christ’s blood paid the cost needed to set us free from slavery to sin and Satan.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Since God removed the barrier of sin that stood between us and Him, we have no reason to allow barriers to stand between us and others.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 4:1-12
Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. - Romans 4:7
TODAY IN THE WORD
The British theologian J. C. Ryle wrote, “Every part of the Bible is meant to teach us about Christ. Christ is not merely in the Gospels and the Epistles. Christ is to be found directly and indirectly in the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets . . . in the promises to Adam, Abraham, Moses, and David.”

Ryle helps us correct a common misconception that the Old and New Testaments present opposite messages, with the sternness of the Old Testament softened by the New Testament’s mercy and grace offered by a God of love. Paul’s use of Abraham to teach faith shows that God’s requirements have always been the same, and that salvation has always been by God’s grace through faith.

Many Christians today would read Romans 1-3 and nod in agreement that “all have sinned” and cannot make themselves acceptable to God. We’ve heard these truths for years, and have accepted Christ’s forgiveness.

But Paul had a tougher audience to deal with. He knew many Jewish readers would object to the idea that their relationship to the law could not bring them into favor with God. Also, people called Judaizers followed Paul around, trying to persuade his converts to go back to law-keeping as the means of pleasing God.

So as he built his case for “a righteousness from God, apart from law” (Rom. 3:21), Paul called Abraham as a witness. Abraham was justified--or “saved,” to use the New Testament term--the day he believed God’s promise and God “credited” Abraham’s faith as righteousness (Gen. 15:6). That was more than a decade before God gave Abraham the covenant sign of circumcision.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul uses the term “credits” or “credited” six times in these verses. This must be an important word.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 4:13-25
He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. - Romans 4:25
TODAY IN THE WORD
People have funny ideas about what faith is. We smile at the little child who defined faith as “believing things you know aren’t so.” Many adults haven’t really improved on that childish idea, because to them faith is crossing their fingers and hoping against hope that something good will happen.

But having faith for its own sake isn’t any more helpful than wishing upon a star. Biblical faith doesn’t float around in the clouds; rather, it is anchored to an unshakable reality--the character and promises of God. Abraham, “the father of all who believe” (Rom. 4:11), illustrates this in Scripture.

We’re digging deeper into the book of Romans, approaching the middle of the section we’ve called “God’s Provision of Righteousness” (see the March 1 study). Paul is telling us that the greatest deficiency we will ever have, the lack of approval with God caused by sin, has been replenished by the greatest provision ever made, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In chapter 4, Paul focuses on the faith by which we appropriate, or activate, the benefits of Christ’s provision in our lives. Abraham is an important example of faith because he believed God from first to last--from his arrival in Canaan when God promised the land to him and his descendants, to the promise of Isaac’s birth in the face of humanly impossible odds.

Abraham’s faith not only predated his circumcision by more than a decade. It also predated the giving of the law by hundreds of years, giving Paul more proof for his thesis that justification comes by faith and not by keeping the law.

The good news for us today is that we can have faith in God like Abraham. We have the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ credited to our heavenly account when we put our faith in Him.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Jesus’ resurrection was like the receipt you are given for a purchase.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 5:1-11
God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8
TODAY IN THE WORD
The great reformer Martin Luther wrote with deep emotion about Christ’s death on our behalf. “The greatest wonder on earth is that the Son of God should die the shameful death on the cross. It is astonishing that the Father should say to His only Son, who is by nature God: 'Go, let them hang You on the gallows.’ . . . But to true Christians it is the greatest comfort; for we recognize that the merciful Father so loved the world, that He spared not His only begotten Son, but gave Him up for us all.”

Luther understood that the greatest love in history was the love Jesus expressed by dying to save us “while we were still sinners.” Paul spends a good part of his letter to the Romans explaining how much we need the righteousness Christ provided through His death, and how much we benefit from His sacrifice.

The benefits of salvation include peace with God. This is possible because we have been reconciled to God through Christ (v. 10). By removing our sin, Christ has removed the discord that existed between us and God. When people are reconciled, they reach peace with each other.

Another benefit of Christ’s death is access to God’s grace, which puts us in right relationship with Him. That’s a place of forgiveness where we can stand with confidence, knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Rom. 8:35).

And with that confidence in our hearts, we can live with a hope for the future that will stand secure during the hard times. We can accept the hard times with joy because we know God is using them to produce Christ-like character in us. And if that’s not enough, we have the daily presence of the Holy Spirit, who constantly reminds us of God’s steadfast love.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
“Rejoic[ing] in our sufferings” (v. 2) is often easier to say than to do.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 5:12-21
As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. - 1 Corinthians 15:22
TODAY IN THE WORD
Shortly before his death in 1981, author William Saroyan made this unusual observation: “Everybody has got to die, but I have always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?”

The answer to that question is the same for every person who has been born since Adam. Death is the undeniable, inescapable result of the sin into which Adam plunged all of his descendants when he disobeyed God’s command. The Bible is clear on two basic facts: Adam’s sin infected the human race, so that we are all born in sin, and sin always results in death.

But there is hope. Jesus Christ provided an atonement that covers both the cause and the effects of sin, and that’s what Paul wanted his readers in Rome to understand. The cure for sin is greater than the disease, and because of that we can “rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 11).

The last half of Romans 5 contrasts the damage that Adam’s sin inflicted and the healing that Jesus’ sacrifice provided. Everything that Adam spoiled, Christ restores--even more beautifully than before. Not everything has been fully restored yet, but the believer hopes in Christ that all things will be as God wants them to be. When we see Adam and Christ in direct contrast, we can appreciate why in another letter, Paul referred to Christ as “the last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45).

Actually, the passage begins with a point of comparison between Adam and Jesus. In each case, “one man” (v. 12) brought about the results being described. But that’s where the similarity ends.

The first of the contrasts is between death and life. Sin “reigned” from the time of Adam to the giving of the law to Moses. Paul’s point is that sin took its death toll even before the law revealed how seriously God viewed sin. But where sin brought death, Christ’s sacrifice brought life (v. 18).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Think once more about these contrasts: death/life, sin/righteousness, judgment/grace, condemnation/justification.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 6:1-14
Do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. - Romans 6:12
TODAY IN THE WORD
Members of a Dallas, Texas church were surprised one Easter Sunday a few years ago when two parking lot attendants approached their cars to collect parking fees. The church had rented a downtown auditorium for a special Easter service, and members were told they could park on nearby lots without charge. But the men in the parking lot that morning wore official-looking orange vests, and asked for the fees in a business-like way. So hundreds of surprised church members paid the fee, only to learn later that it was a scam.

Those phony parking lot attendants are a good illustration of the way sin tries to run our lives. The men had no authority to collect the fees, but they demanded the money anyway. And they got away with it, because the churchgoers were so used to paying to park downtown that they ignored the “freedom” they had been given that Sunday and handed over the money.

Beginning in Romans 6:1, Paul turns his thoughts to the way we should live as people who have traded sin and death for the righteousness and eternal life found in Jesus Christ. This section of Romans (6:1-8:39), which explains our need to grow in Christ, describes the concept of sanctification, a term meaning to be set apart for a special purpose.

That purpose is to become more like Jesus Christ and less like our old sinful selves. This is the ideal--but Paul knew some people would try to argue that if sin caused God’s grace to overflow (5:20), why not sin even more?

Paul squelched that idea with the statement, “We died to sin” (v. 2). When we received Christ as our Savior, we identified with Him in His death and resurrection. The result is that sin no longer has any authority over us because we died to our old way of life. Of course, we are still liable to sin’s influence because our old nature still resides alongside the new.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If we’re not careful, we can be fooled into thinking we don’t really have any choice when it comes to sin.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 6:15-23
The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 6:23
TODAY IN THE WORD
Back in the late 1960s, a high school student was surprised to learn that his older brother was leaving college to join the Marine Corps. Since the Vietnam War was in full swing, the younger boy couldn’t understand why his brother would leave the safety of college, and give up his student deferment, to enter military service. Later, the full story came out. His older brother’s student deferment had been revoked, and he had received his draft notice from the Army. He was going to serve somebody, so he decided he would choose the Marines as his “master.”

The illustration captures the basic idea of today’s reading. Paul reminds his readers that since they had to serve somebody, serving Christ was infinitely better than serving sin.

The term “slaves” here is graphic, just as Paul intends. It’s the strongest term he could use to impress on us the importance of living like the people we have already become in Christ. The choice we have is not whether we will serve, but whom we will serve.

Did you notice that the apostle doesn’t offer a third option? That’s because there is no middle ground between unbelief and belief, sin and righteousness, the old life and the new life. People who think they are living life on their own terms, not indebted to anyone, are living a myth.

Using his effective style of contrasting opposites, Paul explains the difference between being a slave to sin and a slave to Christ. The first kind of slavery leads to a life of shame, which the Romans apparently had experienced before their salvation (vv. 19-21). And worse, it produces death--which in this context means physical and eternal death.

Slavery to Christ, on the other hand, leads to a life of holiness. This is another term for sanctification, the process of Christian growth by which we become mature, Christ-like believers. And in the end, serving Christ reaps the benefit of eternal life.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Do you feel like you’re enslaved to a set of rules, a list of do’s and dont’s, in your Christian life?

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 7:1-13
We have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit. - Romans 7:6
TODAY IN THE WORD
There’s something about human nature and the law that doesn’t mix very well in traffic. A speed limit sign makes us feel like we’re crawling along if we obey it--especially when others are flying past. For some drivers, a yellow light is a test of nerve, not a warning to stop. Any parent who rides with a teenage driver knows if Junior gets stuck behind a slowpoke, the objective of the trip often becomes getting around that slower driver.

Even on the spiritual level, we naturally tend to respond to the restrictions of law that same way. Paul tackles the subject of our relationship to the law as part of his teaching on what it means to grow in Christ. His Roman readers, Jew and Gentile, knew what it meant to live under the principle of law.

But Christ has set us free from the law in the sense that our salvation doesn’t depend on our strict adherence. That doesn’t mean we are free to sin, because we now live by an even higher spiritual code, the life of grace guided by the Holy Spirit. Freedom from the law also means that sin has lost its authority to use the law to arouse our sinful passions.

Paul uses marriage to illustrate his point. Our relationship to the law is like that of a wife to her deceased husband. Since her marriage has been ended by death, this woman is free to marry someone else. As far as we are concerned, trying to please God by keeping the law is no longer an issue.

Paul readily acknowledges that law-keeping was a form of bondage, and that the law stirred the evil desires of sinful humans. We almost hear someone challenging Paul, “Then you must be saying the law itself is evil.”

“Certainly not!” was the apostle’s answer, and he offered a personal example as proof. God’s command, “Do not covet,” reflects His holy character. But the effect of that command on Paul’s sinful heart before he was a Christian was to make him want to covet.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul addresses some serious issues of the Christian life and our relationship to God, but the all-sufficiency of Christ is the main idea.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 7:14-25
Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord! - Romans 7:24-25
TODAY IN THE WORD
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII approved reforms in the ancient Julian calendar. The new calendar recalculated leap year and used a formula to determine the date for Easter. Most countries adopted the Gregorian calendar, but czarist Russia was not one of them. According to one historian, the 1908 Russian Olympic team arrived in London ready for the competition, only to discover that the Games had ended twelve days earlier!

The embarrassing fate of the Russian team illustrates the fact that whenever two opposing systems operate side by side, conflict is inevitable. But we don’t need a calendar to tell us that. All we have to do is look inside ourselves.

That’s what Paul does in the verses we are studying today. He looks inside his own heart, and in honest terms describes the battle he faced in his desire to live a victorious, Christ-centered life.

Most Bible commentators agree that Paul is dealing with the subject of Christian growth in these chapters of Romans. The apostle is so forceful in describing his struggle with the sinful nature that it is hard to believe he is talking about a Christian.

But if we examine ourselves honestly, we will admit that we have felt the same kind of inner struggle as Paul. As Christians, we possess two natures--the old, sinful nature inherited from Adam, and the new nature God implanted within us at salvation. The old has been corrupted by sin, but the new is holy and good.

So Christians are people with two opposing systems at work within them--and this leads to conflict. Our new nature desires to serve and please God. But the old nature, which Paul refers to as “sin living in me” (v. 17), still tries to pull us down even though its authority to rule us was broken in Christ. The old and the new are at war, and we feel the battle inside.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
If you sometimes feel frustrated and defeated in your attempts to live for Christ and put away the sins that drag you down, take heart from Paul’s testimony.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 8:1-17
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. - Romans 8:1
TODAY IN THE WORD
We can be grateful that Paul didn’t end his discussion of Christian growth with the last verse of Romans 7, because we would be left without the answer to two very important questions. Are we destined to spend our lives in a frustrated, losing struggle against the sin nature that lives within us? Has God provided us with a source of power to defeat sin and enjoy the victory Jesus Christ won for us on the cross?

Romans 8 answers each of these questions decisively. The answer to the first question is an emphatic no. We are not doomed to fight and lose against sin. That is because the answer to the second question is an emphatic yes. We have power from God to live every day in spiritual victory.

In chapter 8 Paul makes a very clear distinction between those who belong to Christ and those who don’t. Even though Christians will struggle against sin as long as they are on earth, the ultimate victory has already been won.

The exciting truth is that if you belong to Christ you are free from sin and the law, and you are empowered by the Holy Spirit to live a God-honoring life. This is possible since Christ won the decisive victory over sin and the law’s demands by His sinless life and His death on the cross (vv. 3-4). Everything we needed but couldn’t do for ourselves, Christ did for us.

Therefore, a frustrated, powerless, sin-dominated Christian life is not the norm! In fact, people who live this way need to examine themselves spiritually. Why? Because domination by the sinful nature is a clue that the Holy Spirit may be absent from a person’s life. And if the Spirit is absent, Paul warns, that person doesn’t belong to Christ (v. 9).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
It’s impossible to study Romans without stopping along the way to thank God for His grace. Here are three reasons for praise.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 8:18-30
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. - Romans 8:18
TODAY IN THE WORD
Pastor and author Leith Anderson was a boy in 1956 when his dad took him to his first major league baseball game, a World Series contest between the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers. Anderson was a big Dodgers fan, but he went home disappointed when none of the Dodgers even reached base in the game and they lost 2-0. Anderson was so upset he didn’t realize he had been part of a historic moment--the day Don Larsen of the Yankees pitched the only perfect game in World Series history.

Leith Anderson draws this spiritual parallel: “I was so caught up in my team’s defeat that I missed out on the fact that I was a witness to a far greater page of history. So it is with us. We dare not be so fixed on our troubles that we miss God.”

We’re part of the greatest story in history: God’s activity in saving lost people through the sacrifice of His Son. And our future is glorious, although it’s easy to lose sight of that on any given day when hard times knock us around.

Paul mentions Christ’s sufferings alongside His glory (v. 17) because the two go together. Paul reminds believers that sharing eternal glory with Christ involves suffering for Him temporarily on earth (see 2 Cor. 4:17).

When Adam plunged the human race into sin, God placed a curse on the creation. And just as we often long to trade our very imperfect bodies for new ones, so Paul pictures creation as groaning for its new “body” when Christ returns.

That hasn’t happened yet, but it’s our hope (vv. 24-25). But what about those times when we are weakened by physical, spiritual, or emotional suffering and don’t even know how to pray? We don’t need to despair, because the Holy Spirit translates our groans to the Father.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Yesterday we talked about the past, present, and future of salvation. Verses 29-30 reflect God’s viewpoint.

From God’s perspective our salvation began in eternity past when He chose us in Christ before the world was made (Eph. 1:4). The present part of the story is that He called us to Himself and justified or saved us. And in the future all those whom God justified will also be glorified. If you’re having trouble seeing the future glory, ask God today to give you a new sense of peace and confidence in Him.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 8:31-39
ring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. - Romans 8:33
TODAY IN THE WORD
Chuck Swindoll offers some great suggestions for Scriptural meditation, helping us focus our minds on biblical truth. We’d like to offer today’s passage as a great place to practice the exercises Swindoll suggests: “Meditation is disciplined thought, forced on a single object of Scripture for a period of time. It is reflecting upon specific truths slowly, piece by piece . . . allowing our minds to dig deeply into a word, a phrase, an idea or principle from God’s own Word.”

Let’s reflect on some “specific truths” of God’s Word in today’s reading. In many ways these verses are the high point of Romans, the crescendo of rejoicing. Every sentence is a ringing statement of the secure relationship we have in Christ. There are no flaws or missing pieces in God’s plan.

God purposes to bring all of His children to salvation, through their trials, and then to the final glory of heaven. No one on earth or in hell below can stand against God’s chosen ones. And if God gave us the greatest gift, His Son, He will not fail to give us “all things” we need. God is both our protector and provider.

We’re also secure through our relationship with Christ. Even if Satan, as the implied accuser here, should bring a charge against us, Christ comes to our defense and verifies to the Father that our sins have been paid for.

Circumstances can’t separate us from Christ either. Paul knew what he was talking about here. His sufferings for Christ would have filled a book (2 Cor. 11:16-33), but he could testify that God brought him through each one and was using these things to produce eternal glory (Rom. 8:18).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul didn’t consider himself controlled by his circumstances, because he knew Christ is in control of everything --including life’s circumstances.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 9:1-18
I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. - Romans 9:15
TODAY IN THE WORD
Threading through each continent on earth is a continental divide, that point of high elevation that separates the flow of water to the opposite ends of the continent. Theoretically, a drop of water falling on the U.S. continental divide would eventually reach either the Pacific or Atlantic Ocean, depending on which side of the divide it flowed down.

This illustration helps us grasp the concept of divine sovereignty that we are going to study in the next few chapters of Romans, the section we’re calling “God’s Righteous Dealings with Israel” (9:1--11:36).

Scripture presents God’s sovereignty as both a fact and an evidence of His love, justice, and goodness, whatever our limited minds may think of His choices.

We can see these features in God’s dealings with His chosen people Israel. Paul turns to this subject in Romans because it was close to his heart, and he wants his readers to know what God was doing with the nation of Israel. Paul had such a heartfelt wish for the salvation of his Jewish kinsmen because for the most part, Jews had rejected Christ as Messiah. This rejection raised the issue of where Israel now fit in God’s plan of salvation.

Human logic would say that God simply responded to Israel’s rejection of Christ by rejecting Jews and turning to the Gentiles. But that’s not the explanation Paul gives. God does not react to human actions. His sovereignty is prior to, and often overrules, human choice.

Paul says, in fact, that Israel’s selection as the chosen people was an act of God’s sovereignty from the very beginning. Even though Abraham had other children besides Isaac, Isaac was the only child to whom God’s promise applied. God made a choice among Abraham’s children, on no basis other than His will.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
This section on God’s plan and purpose for Israel contains some difficult concepts that you may want to study in more depth.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 9:19-33
I lay in Zion a stone that causes men to stumble . . . and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame. - Romans 9:33
TODAY IN THE WORD
Theologians explain that when two Bible doctrines seem contradictory, they must be held in tension or balance so that they complement each other. A good example is the way the supporting wires at the opposite ends of a circus high wire keep the wire in the right tension so the performer can walk across it safely.

Romans 9 presents an example of the complementary truths of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Paul uses one of his favorite techniques in Romans when he anticipates the objection someone might have to God’s dealings with Israel (v. 19). The question is one that puzzles us as we try to balance the truths of sovereignty and responsibility. If God molds people by His unalterable will, preparing some for destruction and others for salvation, why does He still hold sinners accountable for their actions?

If you like detailed, philosophical answers to hard questions, you might be disappointed with Paul’s response in verse 20. He simply points us to the God whose wisdom, love, and mercy we can trust, and who doesn’t need to answer to His creatures for the decisions He makes. Although we are not given all the details, ultimately this is the most satisfying answer of all because God is the only unchanging, totally trustworthy Person in creation.

Therefore, if God wants to save a remnant of the Jewish people, and graft the Gentiles onto the olive tree of Israel, He has the right to do that. Paul’s quotations from the prophets Hosea and Isaiah show that God always purposed to call people to Himself from the Gentiles, and that only a remnant of Israel would be saved.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
Paul’s quotation from Hosea reminds us that this wonderful Old Testament prophetic book is the story of God’s relentless, loving pursuit of people even when they are unfaithful to Him.

[Soldier4Christ]

Read: Romans 10:1-13
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. - Romans 10:13
TODAY IN THE WORD
When the Spanish Conquistadors came to explore the Americas, they set out to convert the native people to Christianity. While the notion of winning people to Christ was a good idea, their method of evangelization was overzealous. They threatened to behead anyone who wouldn’t convert. This action “in the name of God” was actually a deplorable crime of injustice.

Religious convictions can get out of hand when they aren’t rooted in the Word of God. Paul described the problem as being “zealous for God” with a religious zeal that is, unfortunately, “not based on knowledge” (v. 2).

This was the condition of many Jews in Paul’s day, and even in the days of Moses according to today’s text. We’re in the portion of Romans in which Paul examines Israel’s place in God’s plan. The nation’s status needed to be clarified for two particular reasons: first, Israel’s rejection of Christ; and second, the first-century church was becoming increasingly Gentile.

Even though Paul had some harsh indictments for his fellow Israelites, no one could accuse him of indifference toward his race. He felt “great sorrow and unceasing anguish” over their unbelief (9:2), and he deeply desired their salvation (10:1).

But the fact remained that although the Israelites had the law of God right in front of them in Moses’ day, they missed the truth of God’s righteous requirements and set out to establish their own righteousness by trying to keep the law. This self-generated righteousness is trying to earn salvation by works. But salvation comes as a gift from God through faith in Christ (see Eph. 2:8-9).
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
As Christians, we can also have problems of living by our own standards instead of by God’s Word

God has given us a tremendous gift in the Bible. If we continually check our lives against Scripture, we can ensure that our decisions are wise and godly. It’s difficult to read the Bible without finding some point of correction for our lives.