Grace Is Not God's Backup Plan: An Urgent Paraphrase of Paul's Letter to the Romans by Adam S. Miller

Author:Adam S. Miller [Miller, Adam S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-02-26T07:00:00+00:00

Romans 15

If you’re strong, don’t use your strength to please yourself. Use it to build up the weak. Use it to bear with their failings. Jesus didn’t live to please himself. He didn’t spend his time getting comfortable. Instead, as many have said, he stepped in and bore the abuse meant for us.

These things that people have written and repeated for a long time, they’re a gift. If we persist in reading and repeating them—day after day, week after week, year after year—hope will distill in our hearts. More, reading and repeating them together, they’ll give us a common mind, Jesus’s mind, so that with one mind and one voice we can glorify God, our father, and Jesus, our rescuer. So welcome each other as Jesus welcomed you. Step together into the light of God’s glory.

Jesus lived and died with insiders to prove that God can be trusted. He did it to prove that God’s promise to father Abraham—the promise that through his seed both insiders and outsiders would be blessed—was still binding. This is why many have said: “Even outsiders will praise your name!” And: “Rejoice, you outsiders, with his people!” And again: “Let all the world’s outsiders praise God’s name!” Or as Isaiah himself says:

A rescuer, a descendent of David and Jesse, will rise up.

And he’ll rule the outsiders.

And the outsiders will learn to hope again because of him.

May the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in believing. May his Spirit make you overflow.

When I think about you, brothers and sisters, I’m filled with hope. I’m convinced that you’re full of goodness and knowledge. I’m convinced that you’re hungry to learn. I’ve written boldly because I want to bring God’s grace to your attention. If I have any power to teach or serve, it’s God’s own doing. I’ve loved, especially, teaching and serving those who didn’t have God’s law. I’ve loved receiving their service in turn. God’s Spirit will sanctify their offerings.

I’m bold in Jesus—even in God’s own presence. I don’t want to talk about anything but God’s grace. I don’t want to talk about anything but what God displayed in Jesus. May Jesus himself be displayed in me to all the world’s outsiders, in word and in deed, in power and in weakness, by way of God’s Spirit. Everywhere I go, my ambition is to break new ground and announce the good news to those who haven’t heard it yet. I’m trying to do what many have predicted. They said:

People who didn’t know about God’s grace will see it.

And people who hadn’t heard it will understand it.

I’ve faced many obstacles along the way. But I hope, now, to come to you in person. I’m feeling restless and after visiting you I hope to make it all the way to Spain.

For the moment, though, I’m headed to Jerusalem. The believers in Jerusalem are ground down and starving. The outsiders I’ve taught have eagerly taken up a collection for them. Having shared in their spiritual blessings, they wanted to bless them materially.

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