New Testament in a Year
22 We know that everything in the universe is still in great pain now. Everything cries together in pain, like a woman who is ready to have a baby. 23 It is the same for us who are believers. We have received God's Spirit as the first of his gifts to us, but we also cry inside ourselves. We are waiting for the time when God will finish his great work. Then we will belong to him completely as his children. Our bodies will be free from the power of sin.
24 Ever since God saved us, we have continued to wait for this to happen. One day, we will receive what we have hoped for. Then we will not need to hope for it any more. Nobody continues to hope for something that he has already. 25 But we continue to hope for what we do not yet see. And so, we wait for it patiently.
26 God's Spirit also helps us to do this. Because we are weak, we do not know how we ought to pray. But God's Spirit himself prays for us. He cries to God on our behalf in a way that nobody could say with words. 27 God sees deep inside us, and he knows our thoughts. He understands what is in the mind of his Spirit. When the Holy Spirit prays on behalf of God's people, he prays as God wants him to pray.
28 We know that God works to help those people who love him. He uses everything that happens to them to bring something good. He does this for those people that he has chosen to serve him. 29 God already had those people in his thoughts from the beginning. He decided that they should become like his Son. So then, his Son would have many younger brothers and sisters. 30 God had already chosen those people to be his children. Because of that, he called them to come to him. He accepted those people as right with himself. And those that he accepted, he also caused them to become great.
God loves us very much
31 So, because of all the things that God does for us, we can say this: If God is working on our behalf, nobody can really do anything against us. 32 God did not even keep his own Son safe. Instead, he gave his Son to die on behalf of all of us. So certainly, God will continue to be kind to us. As well as his Son, he will give to us all things that we need. 33 Nobody can say that God's people are guilty. God himself has accepted us as right with him. 34 So nobody can say that God should still punish us. Nobody can say that, because Christ Jesus himself died on our behalf. And God raised him so that he became alive again after his death. Now Christ is sitting at God's right side in heaven.[a] He himself is praying to God on our behalf.
35 Christ will always continue to love us. Nothing can stop that! We may have troubles. Things may make us sad or afraid. People may do bad things to us. We may have no food or no clothes. There may be great danger. People may even try to kill us. But none of these things can stop Christ from loving us. 36 As it says in the Bible:
‘Because we are your people, God,
people try to kill us all the time.
They think that we are like sheep,
and we are ready to be killed.’[b]
37 Because God loves us, none of these troubles can ever beat us. He makes us win against them. 38-39 I am sure of this. Nothing can stop God from loving us. Death cannot do that. Life cannot do that. Angels cannot do that, nor can demons do that. Nothing that happens to us now, or that will happen in a future time can do that. No powerful spirits can do that. Nothing that is high above the world can do that, nor anything that is deep down below the ground. Nothing else in the whole universe can stop God from loving us. Because of our Lord Christ Jesus, we know how much God loves us.
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