02 January 2022
Two-Minute Features | 09 January 2022

Romans 8:28: God Working the Good, Part 1 (TMF:1760)

Friday, January 07, 2022
Peace to Live By: Romans 8:28: God Working the Good, Part 1 (TMF:1760) - Daniel Litton
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       Now, for one of our favorite verses in the whole entire Bible. Romans chapter 8, and verse 28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28, ESV). Before we dive into this beloved verse, there is one particular thing I want to note. And that is, who’s this verse for? Well, as Paul says, it is “for those who love God.” The truth that pertains to this verse is then exclusively for the believer in Jesus. That’s the condition. We have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. We honor God and seek to do what is right in his sight. When you read the Old Testament, books like Psalms and Proverbs in particular, you notice the passages that talk about the righteous versus the unrighteous, or the just versus the unjust. Romans 8:28 is for the righteous and just. People who aren’t following God, how aren’t honoring him, who are not seeking to please him cannot expect God to work good on their behalf.

The Spirit Helps Us By Praying for Us (TMF:1759)

Thursday, January 06, 2022
Peace to Live By: The Spirit Helps Us By Praying for Us (TMF:1759) - Daniel Litton
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       At times we may ask God something amiss or outside of his will, but this is where the Spirit of God steps in and helps us with our prayer by interceding for us to God. James talked about this. The great thing about the Spirit praying for us is that Paul relays here that he always intercedes for us according to the will of God. He knows what the will of God is when sometimes we don’t. This means that all our bases are covered with the help of the Holy Spirit. We pray, and even if we pray something amiss, the Holy Spirit will pray in the area or areas where we lacked in our prayer. This is so encouraging for us. God is so gracious to us in this way. I think this why a lot of times good things will happen that we didn’t even pray for. They never crossed our mind. We never thought, “Oh, God could do this.” And yet something good happens that we can clearly see was from God and nobody had prayed for it. At least, we hadn’t. But the Spirit had. This is how he helps us.

Why Do We Have Certain Weaknesses? (TMF:1758)

Wednesday, January 05, 2022
Peace to Live By: Why Do We Have Certain Weaknesses? (TMF:1758) - Daniel Litton
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       Sometimes we don’t understand why we have certain weaknesses in our lives. We feel that a weakness in this or that area is not fair; we can feel that God hasn’t been fair toward us. We see someone else excelling in an area we have a weakness in and this can make us upset. Facebook can frequently do this for people; we see others successful where we lack. Nonetheless, when we grasp we have weaknesses we go to God in prayer and sometimes we’re not exactly sure what we should pray for. We believe we would like to be strong in a certain area, but does God desire us to be strong there? If God makes us strong in our weak area, then can he get the glory when he makes us excel in that area? See, we often look at our weaknesses as bad, but God looks at them as good. He sees opportunity in them to display what he can do in and through us. We usually don’t like our weaknesses, but as Paul has said, we need to learn to become content with them and see them as an area for God to work even at the times we don’t know what to pray in regard to them.

We Cannot Perform Perfectly No Matter What (TMF:1757)

Tuesday, January 04, 2022
Peace to Live By: We Cannot Perform Perfectly No Matter What (TMF:1757) - Daniel Litton
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       We cannot and should not expect ourselves to perform perfectly in our lives without any weakness manifesting itself at all. Not only is that not realistic, but it also set us up for disappointment and being too hard on ourselves. We can expect too much of ourselves and we can expect too much of other people as well. We can put burdens on others that God doesn’t want us to put on them, those of which are unrealistic and even unfair. We’ve been examining here in Romans how we are imperfect. We ourselves cannot perform perfectly in all situations, and neither can others. We need to be merciful toward ourselves and merciful toward others. We need to stop getting angry and upset with others when they don’t perform how we believe they should. When we stop demanding perfection from ourselves and accept the fact that we have weaknesses and are going to show our weakness in certain areas, it then makes it easier for us to give grace to others at the moment they show their weakness.

Weakness: Collective & Singular (TMF:1756)

Monday, January 03, 2022
Peace to Live By: Weakness: Collective & Singular (TMF:1756) - Daniel Litton
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       Paul talks here of the weakness of the collective group of believers, for the word weakness is in the singular. We are in weaknesses as Christians and all of these together are the collective weakness. We all have individual weaknesses in our lives. That’s just the way it works, as Paul said. As long as we are in this world, we are going to have weaknesses. And it’s significant for us to realize that is okay for us to accept the fact that we have these weaknesses, whatever they are. Paul had weaknesses. Remember? He told the Corinthian church: ““For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses… For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10, ESV). Yes, God works best in our weaknesses. And why is that? Because then God gets the glory. We cannot and should not expect ourselves to perform perfectly in our lives without any weakness manifesting itself at all. Not only is that not realistic, but it also set us up for disappointment and being too hard on ourselves.