Romans 15 - Tuesday 14th May

Today’s chapter is Romans 15

Tom writes:

Endurance and encouragement are essentials for the ongoing enjoyment of our inheritance. I’ve seen so many friends lose their joy and their peace because their endurance faded away. Paul has laid out such a glorious expectation for us, not only of future increase but also of a life abounding in God’s goodness right now. But Paul hasn’t sold us a lemon. He has also flagged up the very real threats to our joy; nuisance calls from our ex-brother-in-law (Sin), pressure from ‘the powers’, clashes in the church and the daily difficulties of our body of decay. He has painted for us a grubby orange experience; glorious gold in the midst of a dark red world. And so endurance and encouragement are essentials for our joy and peace to remain.

Paul seems to point to three sources of endurance and encouragement. We would do well to latch ourselves onto these sources, like hungry leeches on a blood-filled foot. The first is scripture (v4). The stories of the Old Testament teach us endurance and give us encouragement. The New Testament woos us and wafts us in the direction of grace. Keep on pursuing the presence of God in your bible. Keep on grappling with it and asking questions of it. Make it your companion in life. Endurance and encouragement will flow as a result. The second source of endurance and encouragement is God himself (v5). Build a habit of going to God to get endurance. Ask God to strengthen you and to fill you with all joy. Do this on the easy days and you will be able to do it on the hard days as well. Make it a habit you can’t live without. And then, thirdly, ask people to pray for you (v30). Paul, the great teacher and apostle was astonishingly dependent on the prayers of ordinary people. In every single letter he seems to envy people’s prayers as if he doubts his survival if they will not pray for him. I’m not sure I do that enough. I think I’m still too prone to self-sufficiency. I want to get much better at asking people to pray for me. I want to encourage you to do the same. Let’s just ask people to pray for us a bit more. In fact, why don’t we just stop and pray for each other right now?

Question for reflection

How often do you ask people to pray for you? What do you expect to happen when they do so?