Immerse: Messiah - Flipbook - Page 201
8:5-24
R o ma n s
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just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer
follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.
Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things,
but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that
please the Spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to
death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. For
the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and
it never will. That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful
nature can never please God.
But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by
the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that
those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to
him at all.) And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die
because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right
with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you.
And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your
mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what
your sinful nature urges you to do. For if you live by its dictates, you will
die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of
your sinful nature, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God
are children of God.
So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead,
you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now
we call him, “Abba, Father.” For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that
we are God’s children. And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In
fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share
his glory, we must also share his suffering.
Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to
us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God
will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, all creation was
subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward
to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death
and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains
of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan,
even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory,
for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too,
wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as
his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us. We
were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something,
