Thursday - April 4 READING: Romans 10 God s Plan for Israel (10:14-21) A few years ago, Olivia had the opportunity to go on a missions trip to Israel. The trip was meant to focus on taking the gospel to the Jewish people. While they were met with great resistance from the Jews in Palestine, Olivia and her team knew that they were doing the right thing because God s ideal will for the Jewish people (and for all people) is that they might be saved through the blood of Jesus Christ. This is what Paul teaches at the end of chapter 10. It is not as though God had abandoned Israel to hell, but instead He has offered to all men, Jew and Gentile alike, to be freed from sin through the work of Jesus. Paul points out that this shift in salvation history should not come as a surprise to the Jewish people. God had already told them through various prophecies that He would be found of another people. God s plan for the Jews and for all men to be saved is that believers would be sent out, these believers would preach and unbelievers would believe and call on the Lord for salvation. And whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. God s plan of salvation does not abandon the Jews; it welcomes the world! In this passage, we are again reminded of our responsibility to take the gospel to the world. How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace Let us be encouraged and invigorated to continue to share this wonderful, simple, lifegiving gospel with the world. What does it mean when we say that God is sovereign? Is there anything that God cannot do or change? How is God s plan of salvation in the new testament superior to the old testament? Does that make the old testament system bad or unjust in any way? Why? Praise God that we heard the gospel and called on the name of the Lord for salvation. Ask God to help you to take that same gospel to someone this week.
Friday - April 5 READING: Romans 11 Has God Been Unfaithful? (11:1-10) Today, there are more than a few atheists who continually attack the Christian faith with cries of God being an unfair God. They try to prove that God can t be good because people go to hell, because there is sickness and pain and war in the world, or because God allowed Adam and Eve to sin. However, every time God s character has been tried, it has proven to be flawless. The same is true in God s treatment of Israel. Paul asks the question, Has God cast away His people? And the immediate answer is, absolutely not! (KJV renders it God forbid. ) Paul says that he has two primary proofs that God is not being unfair to Israel. First, Paul points to himself. He was a full-blooded Jewish man whom God had not abandoned. Instead, God had convicted him of his sin and brought him into a new relationship with Him as a child of God! The second example that Paul gives of God s fairness with Israel is an illustration from the Old Testament. In the middle of his ministry, the prophet Elijah had found himself in the pit of despair. He mourned that it seemed that none of God s people were being faithful to Him. In response, God pointed out that there were about 7,000 Israelites who had not abandoned God and who were serving Him faithfully. These were the faithful remnant. So too, there was a remnant in Paul s day: the Jewish people who had come to believe in Jesus. Yes, many of God s people had been alienated from Him because they couldn t believe in the Messiah, but many had, and to them God was fulfilling His promises to the fullest extent. Has there been a time in your life where you thought God may have been unfair or unfaithful to you? Has your understanding of that incident changed in light of learning more about God s character? How can looking at the Old Testament show us more about what we should expect of God? Praise God that He is always faithful, even when we cannot understand what He is doing. Ask God to help you to trust in Him, that His promises will never fail you.
Saturday - April 6 READING: Romans 11 Hope for Israel (11:11-16) Paul now asks, Have they (Israel) stumbled that they should fall? What he is asking here is if Israel s fall from God s favor is repairable. Paul affirms that it is and that God s people can be reconciled to Him. Their path to reconciliation is through the work of Christ. If they will simply come to Jesus in faith, He will accept them, regardless of their past failings and rejection of Him. Paul points out that God offering the gospel to the Gentiles is actually a merciful thing to the Jewish people. When the Jews see God working in Gentie s hearts, they will be jealous, knowing that their own relationship with God is empty, and seeing God s working, they will desire to be in right relationship with Him once again. This plan of God is especially gracious because, of course, it means salvation being freely offered to the rest of the world. Is there any sin that God cannot forgive when people come to Him for forgiveness? What sins were the Jewish people guilty of that may have caused them to think that Jesus could not forgive them? Look up the word reconcile in a dictionary. Does this help you understand the meaning of verse 15? Praise God that His divine plan included the extension of the gospel to us, the Gentiles. Ask God to help you to spread the news of the gospel to every person: Jew or Gentile, black or white, rich or poor. The gospel is for all!
Sunday - April 7 READING: Psalm 16 Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust. O my soul, thou hast said unto the LORD, Thou art my Lord: My goodness extendeth not to thee; But to the saints that are in the earth, And to the excellent, in whom is all my delight. Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, Nor take up their names into my lips. The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: Thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; Yea, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the LORD, who hath given me counsel: My reins also instruct me in the night seasons. I have set the LORD always before me: Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: My flesh also shall rest in hope. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; Neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: In thy presence is fulness of joy; At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. Where is David s trust? How is this reflective of the faith that it takes to be saved? In verse 6, David praises God for a goodly heritage. He is talking about having parents who believed in and obeyed God. Do you have a goodly heritage? Even if your earthly parents are not saved, you still have your heavenly father, God Himself. Pray through this Psalm verse by verse, applying it to your own life.
Monday - April 8 READING: Romans 11 Grafted In (11:17-24) Paul teaches that Gentiles are grafted into God s promise of salvation. Grafting is the practice of cutting a branch off of one plant and attaching it to the stem of another plant so that it will grow there. God s plan of salvation had begun in the Old Testament with the people of Israel, but now in the New Testament through Christ the Gentiles were being grafted in and added to that plan. However, at the same time of the grafting, there was also pruning of dead branches. This refers to those Jews who refused to accept Jesus and were estranged from God through their rejection. However, God promises that he will graft the Old Branches back onto the root if they will believe, so Jewish people who have rejected Christ in the past can still be accepted into right relationship with God if they will simply repent and believe in Jesus for salvation. God still has a special plan for Israel, but that plan includes the Jewish people returning to God by believing in Christ. What does Paul say is the only difference between branches that are alive and branches that are cut off? (Vs. 20) Praise God that we have been grafted into God s plan of salvation! Ask God to help you to remain faithful and to grow in him as a healthy, living branch would grow.
Tuesday - April 9 READING: Romans 11 Unsearchable (11:25-36) Have you ever had someone not keep a promise to you? Maybe someone promised that they would pick you up after your sports practice, but they completely forgot. Maybe they promised to leave you a cookie, but they ended up eating all of them. Maybe they promised that they would do their part of a group assignment, but you ended up doing the whole thing yourself. People tend to be unreliable like that. They tend to care primarily about themselves and focus on their own needs. God, on the other hand, is not like that. Our God is a God who keeps His promises every single time. He is a God who has never lied and never been wrong. He is a God who fulfills His word and whose covenants are good for all of eternity. So, when God had made a covenant with His people Israel that He would ultimately send a savior to deliver the Jewish people from their sins, they should have believed Him. You see, not only was God not wrong in sending Jesus to save the world (Jews included) from their sin, but He was also fulfilling hundreds of promises that He had been making since the garden of Eden. Don t believe me? Just check out Genesis 3:15 sometime. Some of the Jews were up-in-arms because God had sent a savior to redeem the whole world, shifting salvation history away from Israel and onto the church, but they shouldn t have been upset at all! They should have been rejoicing that God had done exactly what He had promised to do and sent the answer to the Jews centuries of enslavement to the OT Law. We can praise God as a God who fulfills His Word in His way in His time. He will always do what He says He will do, and we can trust Him because of that. What does it mean that God s ways are past finding out? According to verse 36, how does God relate to all things? Praise God that He fulfills His promises and that He never fails. Ask God to help you to trust in His promises, even the ones that we don t know when or how He will fulfill them in the future.
Wednesday - April 10 READING: Psalm 24 The earth is the Lord s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Selah. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah. It is often good to be reminded of God s power and sovereignty over all people. How does God s sovereignty affect your life? Pray through this Psalm verse by verse, applying it to your own life.
Upcoming Events 4/3 - CORE + Bible Quiz Practice 4/6 - Youth Rally at Bible Baptist Church 4/10 - CORE 4/14 - Devonshire Memory verse for next week Psalm 101:3 I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me. 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.