Wednesday, January 22, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Romans 8
- Secondary Reading: Psalms 10
Key Verse
Romans 8:20 — “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,”
Devotional Thought
Paul writes to the church at Rome, a congregation he has never visited, a mix of Jewish and Gentile believers still finding their footing in the gospel. Into their uncertainty he pours this chapter like a flood of light. He begins with a courtroom verdict: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” The word “now” carries the weight. Not someday, not after enough progress, but now. Paul knows what it is to be condemned—he once held the coats of those who stoned Stephen, and he calls himself the chief of sinners. Yet here he stands, declaring that the law’s weakness through the flesh was answered by God sending His own Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” condemning sin in the flesh. The ledger is settled. The gavel has fallen in our favor.
From that verdict Paul climbs higher. The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us and will quicken our mortal bodies. We are not slaves but sons, crying “Abba, Father,” and if children, then heirs—joint-heirs with Christ. Then comes the passage many of us have clung to in dark hours: “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God.” Paul does not say all things are good. He says they work together, like threads in a tapestry whose pattern we cannot yet see from underneath. Creation itself groans and travails, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God, and we groan with it, waiting for the redemption of our body. In January, when the year is still young and cold, we feel that groaning—the resolutions already strained, the daylight still brief. Paul would tell us: this waiting is not abandonment. The Spirit Himself intercedes for us “with groanings which cannot be uttered” when we do not know what to pray.
Then the crescendo: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Paul stacks every possible threat—tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword—and dismisses them one by one. Not because they are harmless, but because they are powerless to sever what God has joined. “Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.” More than conquerors—not merely survivors, but those who come through with spoils.
Psalm 10 gives voice to the other side of the ledger. The wicked boast, curse, lurk in secret places like a lion in his den, and say in their hearts, “God hath forgotten.” The psalmist cries, “Why standest thou afar off, O LORD?” We have all prayed that prayer. But the psalm ends not in despair but in confidence: “The LORD is King for ever and ever… thou hast heard the desire of the humble.” Romans 8 answers Psalm 10 across the centuries. The wicked who say “Thou wilt not require it” will meet the God who “beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with thy hand.” And the humble, the fatherless, the oppressed—the very ones the wicked hunt—are the ones for whom the Spirit intercedes and for whom all things work together for good. Nothing in all creation, not even the lion in his den, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Reflection
- Paul says the Spirit intercedes for us “with groanings which cannot be uttered” when we do not know what to pray. Where in your life right now are you groaning without words—and can you trust that groan to the Spirit rather than forcing it into tidy prayers?
- Psalm 10 asks why God stands afar off while the wicked prosper, and Romans 8 answers that nothing can separate us from His love. Which of these two truths do you find harder to believe this week, and why?
Prayer
Father, we come as children who cry “Abba” and as sheep accounted for the slaughter, and we thank Thee that both are true at once. Thou didst not spare Thine own Son, and Thou wilt not withhold any good thing from those He died to save. When the wicked seem to prosper and Thou seemest far off, remind us that Thou beholdest mischief and spite and art the helper of the fatherless. When our own hearts condemn us, remind us that there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Carry us through this winter season with patience and hope, groaning with creation yet confident in the glory to be revealed. Hold us fast, for nothing in all creation can separate us from Thy love. Amen.
Psalm Verse
Psalms 10:1 — “Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble?”