Therefore, there is no valid condemnation for Loved One, who is in Christ Jesus. Through Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life set them free from the law of sin and death! What rules could not do, God did by sending His Son to be the sin offering. God paid for the sins in Loved One, so that the requirements of the law might be met. Loved One lives according to the Spirit. Those who focus on their sinful, self-centered nature have their minds set on what they want. And those who live in accordance with the Spirit, have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.
The mind of the self-centered person is basically dead, but Loved One‘s mind, controlled by the Spirit, is life and peace. The self-centered mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it. It’s is like a wild horse that needs to be tamed. Those controlled by the sinful, self-centered nature don’t please God. Loved One, however, is controlled by the Spirit. The Spirit of God lives in them! Anyone who does not trust the Holy Spirit within them does not belong to Christ. With Christ in Loved One, their spirit is alive! The Spirit, the One who raised Jesus from the dead lives in Loved One! God who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to their mortal body through the Spirit!
Therefore, Loved One has an obligation! For when Loved One lives according to the Spirit Loved One puts to death the misdeeds of the body, Loved One will live! Those led by the Spirit of God are God’s heirs. For Loved One did not receive a spirit that makes them a slave to fear, but they received the Spirit of heirship. And by that Spirit Loved One cries, “Daddy! Father!” The Spirit agrees with their spirit that Loved One is God’s child. Now if Loved One is a child of God, then they inherit everything God has along with Jesus! That’s why Loved One shares in Christ’s sufferings so that they may also share in Christ’s glory! I consider that their present sufferings do not compare with the glory that will be revealed in them.
All Creation waits in eager expectation for the heirs of God, including Loved One, to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by choice, but by the will of the One who subjected it. That the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of Loved One, a child of God. We know that Creation has been groaning all along as if in childbirth. We, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, also groan inwardly as we wait for our adoption as heirs, and the redemption of our bodies.
For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is not hoping at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But Loved One patiently hopes for what Loved One does not have. In the same way, the Spirit helps them in all their human weaknesses. Like all of us, Loved One does not know what to pray for, but the Spirit personally intercedes with groans that words cannot express. The Spirit intercedes in agreement with God’s personal will for them.
In all things, God works for Loved One‘s benefit, who loves God and has been called by God. For those God knew before time, God predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. Hey, Jesus is the oldest of many siblings! Those whom God predestined, God also called. Those God called, He also justified. Those God justified, God also glorified. How will respond to this truth? Since God is for Loved One, nothing can really succeed against them! God did not spare Jesus from suffering. He gave Him up for their sake. God, along with Jesus, will graciously give them everything as an inheritance?
When someone will bring charges against Loved One, the one whom God has chosen, God justifies them! Only those not of God can try to condemn Loved One! Christ Jesus, who died–more than that, He was also raised back to life–is at the right hand of God and is interceding for Loved One. What can possibly separate them from Christ’s love? Troubles? Hardship? Persecution? Famine? Poverty? Crisis? Wars? No way! As it is written: “For His sake Loved One faces death all day long; because we are considered sheep to be slaughtered.”
Loved One is more than a conqueror through God. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the past, the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all Creation, will be able to separate Loved One from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8, NAPSV
