Once we step into Paul and his 'great sorrow', his 'unceasing anguish' and his longing to be 'cut off from Christ' for the sake of his people Israel. And yet more, when we open ourselves to his desperate pleas to find our understanding of God not merely in the confines of humanity but in the revealed character of God, we too are hit with the heaviness of God's mercy, and God’s great, holy, righteous justice, and we are hit afresh with the blindness of the human condition, and the darkness of our own hearts.
We are reminded again, in light of the joys of heaven, - the reality of hell. And immersed in all this we are met again and again with the all-encompassing worth, knowledge and truth of all that is done and created is done and created ultimately for God's glory. –The perfect purpose where all our delight will one day lie, and that now we daily try to seek in Jesus.
This is one of those passages which you can easily add 2 and 2 and get 90, or 2 and 2 and get -600! The only way to get 4 is to submit to God's majesty in his character, and long to be humbled in our knowledge of whom he is, to accept the perfected beauty of God as so much bigger than our fallen hearts can contain, and seek to be more like his Son Jesus.
Please pray for me, I’m discovering how heavy the person of God can lie on a mind so influenced by sin, and a heart that has spent so much in darkness. Pray that as I get deeper into this word, I will find delight, and joy, and gold, and white clothes, and eye-ointment. Pray that I will be faithful to God's message, and that I will witness to its truth in real, authentic and submitting ways. Pray that I can discover avenues into and out of this passage that will make me look to and pursue Christ-likeness for many years to come.
Thanx!
Tim
2 comments:
Romans 9 is hard but also very wonderful - it's one of the chapters I most frequently give thanks to God for!
Absolutely. The more time I spend in this passage, and the more I immerse myself in the totality of God's mercy over His people as shown here, the more I long to seek his depths. What an awesome and very beautiful gift Rom. 9 is!
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