March 27           Friday                Romans 11.13-24

¹³ But I have this to say to all of you who are not ethnic Jews: I am God’s emissary to you, and I honor this call by focusing on what God is doing with and through you. ¹⁴ I do this so that somehow my own blood brothers and sisters will be made jealous; and that, I trust, will bring some to salvation. ¹⁵ If the fact that they are currently set aside resolves the hostility between God and the rest of the world, what will their acceptance bring if not life from the dead? ¹⁶ If the first and best of the dough you offer is sacred, the entire loaf will be as well. If the root of the tree is sacred, the branches will be also.

¹⁷ Imagine some branches are cut off of the cultivated olive tree and other branches of a wild olive (which represents all of you outsiders) are grafted in their place. You are nourished by the root of the cultivated olive tree. ¹⁸ It doesn’t give you license to become proud and self-righteous about the fact that you’ve been grafted in. If you do boast, remember that the branches do not sustain the root—it is the system of roots that nourishes and supports you.

¹⁹ I can almost hear some of you saying, “Branches had to be pruned to make room for me.” ²⁰ Yes, they were. They were removed because they did not believe; and you will stay attached, be strong, and be productive only through faith. So don’t think too highly of yourselves; instead, stand in awe of God’s mercy. ²¹ Besides we know that God did not spare the natural branches, so there is no reason to think He will spare you. ²² Witness the simultaneous balance of the kindness and severity of our God. Severity is directed at the fallen branches withering without faith. Yet kindness is directed at you. So live in the kindness of God or else prepare to be cut off yourselves. ²³ If those branches that have been cut from the tree do not stay in unbelief, then God will carefully graft them back onto the tree because He has the power to do that. ²⁴ So if it is possible for you to be taken from a wild olive tree and become part of a cultivated olive tree, imagine how much easier it would be to reconnect branches that originally grew on that olive tree.March