From this passage we understand that God choose Israel and He has the right to choose someone else. God may choose to have compassion on people who we think are not deserving but this is Gods divine prerogative. God is a God who is full of mercy and compassion and He desires to make this known throughout the universe. When God extends His compassion He reveals His character of love.

Prayer: Father thank you for your mercy and compassion towards us. Help us to continue to look toward You the author and finisher of our faith. In Jesus name amen.

Paul is showing how God is in control of everything. God knows that we will be unsuccessful and that we will have challenges. The beautiful thing about God is that He is able to work things out in the midst of our mishaps. God is not put in chains when we mess up but His power is more clearly seen in our weakness.

Look at the phrase in Romans 9:6: "For
they are not all Israel, which are of Israel." What important message can we find there for ourselves, as Adventists, who in many ways play the same role in our day that the ancient
Israelites did in theirs?

It is easy to get caught to in the fact that we have the name Adventists like Israel. The name that we have does not guarantee our salvation. We must all individually choose to follow God in spirit and in truth. God will not judge us by our profession of truth but by our manifestation of that truth in our lives.

Prayer: Thank you Father for your promise of salvation. Please help is to surrender our lives to you so we may be saved.May we thrust in you and you alone. In Jesus name amen.

Here Paul is talking about the nature of the Spirit that we receive from Christ. Before
we were slaves in bondage held captive to sin by fear. This fear kept us mindlessy thethered to the Enemy of our souls. But Jesus brings a whole new type of relationship. With the entrance of the Spirit into our lives we go from slaves to sons. We become the children of God. This adoption as sons is made available to us through Jesus Christ. When we accept Christ then we are able to experience this new found hope as children of God.

What gives us the assurance that God has indeed accepted us as children? Rom. 8:16.

The Holy Spirit will testify with our spirit the we are the sons of God. So what does this mean? A perfect example of this was when Jesus was baptized and God testifies that Jesus was His Son. In the same was God will give us indications that we are His children. The way we live our lives is a good indicator of who our Father is.

How close are you to the Lord? Do you really know Him, or just about Him?What changes must you make in your life in order to have a closer walk with your Creator and Redeemer? What
holds you back, and why?

Any relationship of value will require time for it to develop. In the same way we must spend time with God in order to develop our relationship. In seeking to develop trust there are some things that will need to be cut out from our lives. We need to make more time for God and less time for the things that don't really matter.

Prayer : Father thank you for the gift in Jesus. We thank you that we no longer have to fear as slaves but we cry out Abba Father as sons . Please give us Your Spirit that we may become Your sons indeed. In Jesus name amen.