Verses 14-16 in today’s reading are tough ones for me, 14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. Don’t get me wrong, I trust in God wholeheartedly, but my human understanding sometimes gets in the way. Earlier in the chapter, Paul uses the example of Jacob and Esau; one of the twins He had mercy and the other He allowed to be hardened. It doesn’t make sense to me, but God’s plan is perfect. He does things for a specific purpose in mind and I need to accept it and wait to see how it plays out. As I get older, I am beginning to understand there are something’s I will never understand. There are some things I don’t need to understand. I simply need to trust God and know He can turn what seems to be a bad thing into something that is used for His glory. More importantly, grace comes from God alone. There is nothing I can do to receive any more or less of it. It comes from one source, and that is God’s perfect sovereignty.
2012 Day 215 – Romans 9
02 Thursday Aug 2012
Posted in Daily Reading
Daily Devotion 
The key part of the passage for me is verse 16, “It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.” Thank the Lord! I’m so thankful that I don’t have to “do” anything to earn God’s mercy or compassion. If I had to continually depend on my effort, I’d be in trouble! We’re all sinners who the Lord has compassion on because it’s His nature. It’s His gift. Thankfully, His free gift–as long as we accept it.
Well said, John!!
Talk about God being sovereign and having mercy and doing as he sees fit…this chapter was perfect for me today. My brother died 5 years ago today. By the world’s standards he was too young. The timing was not right. He was taken from us too soon. Talk about not understanding why. Talk about questioning God’s ways. But oh how he has brought good out of a horrendous situation. How my potter has reshaped me, my family…how my all knowing God, my Great Physician, my Abba Father has brought healing and reconciliation to a place where the world would say it would never be possible. How grateful I am for a God that I now know deep in my heart is good and is to be trusted at all times even when my world is turned on its head and nothing makes sense.
These have all been great points. To add to those, at the end of the chapter, it has really challenged me:
but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. As it is written: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And ywhoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 9:31-33 NKJV)
The people that spent their entire existence, for generations completely lost what they dedicated their lives to simply because they lost their faith along the way.
I pray that I look to God for grace, wisdom, understanding and most importantly renewed faith. I do not ever want to fall pray to my own arrogance that I know God’d will, what God would want, how God would favor, or react, etc.
I want to live dependantly on the Lord, daily pursuining His will and His way walking by faith and faith alone.