Romans 9: The Mercy of God

Our relationship with God is often misunderstood. We often believe God loves us because of something we have done or dislikes us for something we have done wrong. However, nothing could be further from the truth.

In Romans 9, Paul speaks of the real reason behind our connection with God. We read in verse 16: “It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.”

Some read Romans 9 and question how God could be loving yet choose one person over another. But that is not Paul’s focus. The purpose is to communicate that our salvation is not based on our efforts, which will always be inadequate, but on God’s mercy, which is fully adequate and perfect in ways beyond our human understanding.

Because of this, we who knows Jesus cannot take pride in our own efforts in knowing him personally. Rather, we live in joyful and reverent worship at his choosing of us. Likewise, we seek to share his perfect mercy with others, knowing there are yet more people for whom God’s mercy has prepared the way to know his Son and experience the love we enjoy.

God’s mercy is perfect. One way we know is that despite our flaws and sins, his mercy has given us access to God through Jesus Christ.

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Dillon Burroughs is the author or co-author of numerous books and is handwriting a copy of all 31,173 verses of the Bible at HolyWritProject.com. Find out more about Dillon at Facebook.com/readdB or readdB.com.