My heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved.  For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.  For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.  For Christ [...]

Not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring, but “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”  This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring.  (Romans 9:7-8)
In chapter nine, Paul points to several old [...]

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also graciously give us all things?  (Romans 8:31-32)
So God has given us His Spirit!  How can we fail?  If [...]

We ourselves, who have the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved.  (Romans 8:23-24)
The Spirit gives us assurance of the day when we will be welcomed in heaven as God’s son and be perfected in body and mind so [...]

So we are freed from the slavery of sin to live in the Spirit.  But what does that actually mean?  Romans 8:12-17 gives us three amazing functions of the Spirit working in us.
 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of [...]

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.  For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.  (Romans 8:1-3)
This is a great recap of [...]

But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.  (Romans 7:6)
Chapter 7 begins with an analogy to illustrate the point from the end of chapter 6—we must [...]