2020 for JESUS - Day 251: JESUS is GOD's WORD... GOD... MERCY... COMPASSION... GOD'S MERCY... THE ONE WHO FORMED HUMANS... THE POTTER... THE LIVING GOD... THE LORD... THE LORD ALMIGHTY...

 

Romans 9:6-29

God’s Sovereign Choice

^6 “It is not as though GOD’s WORD had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 

⁷ Nor because they are HIS descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary,

‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ 

⁸ In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are GOD’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. 

⁹ For this was how the promise was stated:

‘At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.’

¹⁰ Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 

¹¹ Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that GOD’s purpose in election might stand: 

¹² not by works but by HIM who calls—she was told,

‘The older will serve the younger.’

¹³ Just as it is written: ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’

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 human desire or effort, but on GOD’s MERCY. 

¹⁷ For Scripture says to Pharaoh:

‘I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.’

 ¹⁸ Therefore GOD has mercy on whom HE wants to have mercy, and HE hardens whom HE wants to harden.

¹⁹ One of you will say to me: 

‘Then why does GOD still blame us? 

For who is able to resist HIS will?’

²⁰ But who are you, a human being, to talk back to GOD? 

‘Shall what is formed say to THE ONE WHO FORMED IT (HUMANS), 

‘Why did YOU make me like this?’

²¹ Does not THE POTTER have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

²² What if GOD, although choosing to show HIS wrath and make HIS power known, bore with great patience the objects of HIS wrath—prepared for destruction? 

²³ What if HE did this to make the riches of HIS glory known to the objects of HIS mercy, whom HE prepared in advance for glory— 

²⁴ even us, whom HE also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? 

²⁵ As HE says in Hosea:

‘I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
    and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,”

²⁶ and,

‘In the very place where it was said to them,
    ‘You are not MY people,’
    there they will be called ‘children of THE LIVING GOD.’

²⁷ Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:

‘Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
    only the remnant will be saved.

²⁸ For THE LORD will carry out
    HIS sentence on earth with speed and finality.’

²⁹ It is just as Isaiah said previously:

“Unless THE LORD ALMIGHTY    

had left us descendants,
we would have become like Sodom,
    we would have been like Gomorrah.’