March 23           Monday               Romans 9.19-33

¹⁹ I can hear one of you asking, “Then how can He blame us if He is the one in complete control? How can we do anything He has not chosen for us?” ²⁰ Here’s my answer: Who are you, a mere human, to argue with God? If God takes the time to shape us from the dust, is it right to point a finger at Him and ask, “Why have You made me this way?” ²¹ Doesn’t the potter have the right to shape the clay in any way he chooses? Can’t he make one lump into an elegant vase, and another into a common jug? Absolutely. ²² Even though God desires to demonstrate His anger and to reveal His power, He has shown tremendous restraint toward those vessels of wrath that are doomed to be cracked and shattered. ²³ And why is that? To make the wealth of His glory known to vessels of mercy that are prepared for great beauty. ²⁴ These vessels of mercy include all of us. God has invited Jews and non-Jews, insiders and outsiders; it makes no difference. 

²⁵ The prophet Hosea says: I will give a new name to those who are not my people; I’ll call them “My people, ”and to the one who has not been loved, I’ll rename her “beloved.”  ²⁶ And it shall turn out that in the very place where it was said to them, “You are not my people, ”they will be called “children of the living God.”

²⁷ And this is what Isaiah cries out when he speaks of Israel, “Even though the number of the children of Israel had once been like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of My people will be rescued and remain. ²⁸ For the Lord will waste no time in carrying out every detail of His sentence upon the earth.” 

²⁹ It is as Isaiah predicts Except for the fraction of us who hang on by the grace of the Lord, Commander of heavenly armies, we’d be destroyed and deserted like Sodom and Gomorrah, utterly done in.

³⁰ So what does all of this mean? Did the non-Jews stumble into a right standing with God without chasing after it? Yes, they found it through faith. ³¹ And has Israel, who pursued the law to secure a right standing with God, failed to keep the law? Yes again. ³² And why is that? Because Israel did not follow the path of faith. They thought that whatever they needed to be right with God could be accomplished by doing the works of the law; they tripped over the stumbling stone. ³³ As the Scriptures say, Look what I am going to do in Zion. I’ll put in place a stone that makes them stumble, a rock that trips them up, and those who trust in it will not be disgraced.