Romans 8

So God will not condemn and punish those who are joined to Christ Jesus.

God's Spirit causes you to live in a new way because you are joined to Christ Jesus, and he has set you free from sin and death.

What we could not do through the law, God did. We could not stop sinning by following the law because of our sinful human nature. But God sent his own Son, who became human like us except he never sinned. He was punished for our sin like an offering for sin, and in that way he broke the power of sin in our lives.

So we can now fulfill all that God required in his law. We do this, not by our acting the way our old evil attitude desires, but instead by living as God's Spirit desires us to live.

People who live by their evil attitudes think about those attitudes. But people who live by what God's Spirit wants think about the things of the Spirit instead.

Those who think about and are concerned about what their evil attitude desires will not live forever. But those who want what God's Spirit desires will live forever and have peace.

Let me explain this. To the extent that people want what their evil attitude desires, they are acting contrary to God. They do not obey his law. In fact, they are not even able to obey his law.

The people who do what their evil attitude tells them cannot please God.

But we do not have to let our sinful human nature control us. Instead, we can let God's Spirit control us because he lives within us. If the Spirit who comes from Christ does not live in a person, that person does not belong to Christ.

But since Christ is living in you by his Spirit, God views your bodies as dead, so you no longer have to sin. And he views your spirits as alive because he has put you right with himself.

God caused Jesus to live again after he died. And because his Spirit lives in you, God will also make your bodies, which now are sure to die, live again. He caused Christ to live again after he died, and he will make you live again by causing his Spirit to do it.

Therefore, my fellow believers, we have an obligation; but our obligation is not to live according to what our sinful human nature wants us to do.

If you do what your sinful human nature wants, you will surely not live forever with God. But if the Spirit stops you from doing those things, then you will live forever.

We who obey the Spirit of God are God's children.

This is because you have not received a spirit who makes you live in fear. You are not like slaves who fear their masters. On the contrary, God has given you his Spirit, and his Spirit has made us God's children. The Spirit now enables us to cry out to God, "You are my Father!"

The Spirit himself confirms what our spirits say, that we are God's children.

Because we are God's children, we will also one day receive what God has promised us. And we will receive this together with Christ. But we must suffer for doing good as Christ did, so that God may honor us.

I think that what we suffer during the present time is not worth paying attention to, because the future splendor that God will reveal to us will be so great.

The things that God has created are very eagerly waiting for the time when he will reveal who his true children are.

God caused the things that he created to be unable to achieve what he had intended. That was not because they wanted to fail. On the contrary, God made them that way because he was certain

that the things he created will one day no longer die, decay, and fall apart. He will free these things from that, so that he can do the same wonderful things for these things that he will do for his children.

We know that until now it is as though all things that God created have been groaning together, and they want him to do those same wonderful things for them. But now it is just like a woman who is having the pains that come before she gives birth to a child.

Not only does all of creation groan, but we also groan inwardly. We who have God's Spirit—and he is the first of God's many gifts to us—groan while we wait eagerly for the time when we will receive our full rights as God's adopted children; that is when he will give us the gift of our new bodies.

For God saved us because we had confidence in him. If we had now the things for which we have been waiting, we would not need to wait for them any longer. After all, if you possess something that you have been expecting to get, you certainly do not need to wait for it any longer.

But because we keep waiting expectantly to receive what we do not yet have, we wait for it eagerly and patiently.

Similarly, God's Spirit helps us when we are weak. We do not know what is proper for us to pray. But God's Spirit knows; as he prays for us, he groans in a way that cannot be expressed in words.

God, who examines our inner attitude and mind, understands what his Spirit desires. His Spirit prays for us who belong to God exactly as God wants him to pray.

And we know that for those who love God, he works out all things that happen to them in a way that does them good. He does this for those whom he has chosen because that was what he planned to do.

God already knew us and decided to make our character become like his Son's character. The result is that Christ is honored as God's firstborn Son among many brothers and sisters.

And the ones God decided previously who would be like his Son, he also called them to be with him. And the ones he called to be with him, he also made them to be right with himself. And to the ones whom he has put right with himself, he also will give them honor.

So I will tell you what we must learn from all these things that God does for us. Because God is acting on our behalf, no one can win against us!

God did not spare even his very own Son. Instead, he turned him over to others to cruelly kill him, so that all we who believe in him may benefit from his dying for us. Because God did that, he will also certainly give us freely everything that we need to live for him.

No one can accuse us before God of doing wrong, for he has chosen us to belong to him. He is the one who has put us right with himself.

No one can condemn us any longer. Christ is the one who died for us—and more than that, he also was raised from the dead—and he is ruling with God in the place of honor, and he is the one who is pleading for us.

Absolutely no one and nothing can cause Christ to stop loving us—even if someone afflicts us, or even someone harms us, or even if we have nothing to eat, or even if we do not have enough clothes, or even if we live in a dangerous situation, or even if someone will kill us!

Such things may happen to us, just as it is written that David said to God, "Because we are your people, others repeatedly attempt to kill us. They consider that we are only people to be killed, like a butcher considers that sheep are only animals to be slaughtered."

But even though all these bad things happen to us, we win completely over these things because Christ, who loves us, helps us.

I am completely convinced that neither anything from the realm of the dead, nor what happens to us while we live, nor angels, nor demons, nor present events, nor future events, nor powerful beings,

nor the places high above, nor the places in the deepest ocean, nor anything else that God has created can pull us apart from the love of God in Jesus Christ our Lord.