Let’s read Romans chapter 8!

It’s a milestone! We have successfully gotten into half of the book of Romans! What beauty?! Amen. Romans chapter 8 has 39 verses. We get to dive further into what it means to live by the Spirit. We realize the Godly inheritance we have as children of God and joint heirs with Christ! We see the everlasting love that God has for us and the future glory He has for us all, Christians!

As usual, you may first read through the entire chapter 8 on your own, first, then return to read through my summary which follows immediately after this paragraph. Feel free to comment elements of your thoughts and understanding. I look forward to reading through them, amen!

By the requirements of the law, we could not attain to righteousness. So God, seeing therefore that we would never attain to the righteous requirement, sent His Son. The only one capable of fulfilling the righteous demands of the law. This was so that through Him, also, we may be ushered into righteousness and newness of life.

This ushering into righteousness is by faith and through the spirit. As such, we as Christians have to be conscious of where our hearts and minds are set towards. Toward the spirit or toward our flesh? In the flesh, like we saw in the previous chapter, sin is prevailing, but in the spirit, Christ is prevailing as the Spirit of Christ has been given to mingle with our human spirit and cause us to be regenerated believers. But we must be careful not to quench this Spirit. We quench this Spirit by locking Him up in our spirits and not fellowshipping and being renewed on a day-to-day basis by Him. This is why we need to ensure that our minds are set on the spirit.

Setting our minds on the spirit is not a once for all matter and it is also not a matter that we passively experience. To set our minds on the spirit, we need to constantly be in the presence of God, opening up to Him, fellowshipping in Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual songs, hearing the word of God and meditating on it. We only have to open to Him and He will complete the matter in us.

We, by our faith in the one who justifies us have been separated unto righteousness by our accepting and taking in of Christ, however, there is more to our Christian walk than just one-time believing. We need constant contact with Christ in our spirits. Verse 19 stresses the importance of this; as the creature waits in earnest watching for the revelation of the sons of God. We are those sons, and to be those sons, we have to grow in Christ from being babies, to actually maturing in the faith.

May the Lord lay in our hearts the importance of waiting on Him and depending completely on Him. I find myself, most times, setting my heart on my flesh. Locking myself up in my mind, and emotions. Not trying to figure out what God’s own interests are in a number of these things. But God is faithful. He has begun the journey with me, He will complete it.