We’ve probably all had times when we realise just how much we try to hold everything together by ourselves. We patch things up, we keep going, we smile when we’re tired, we pretend we’re fine when we’re not. We try to be strong, capable, sorted. And sometimes we manage it for a while. But sometimes the cracks show, and we realise that some things cannot be mended by our own efforts. Paul understood this. In Romans (10:5-15), he speaks to people who were trying to make themselves right with God by sheer determination. They were trying to climb their way up to God, trying to be “good enough”, trying to earn righteousness by the law. And into that struggle Paul speaks a simple truth - the word is near you. This is the heart of Paul’s argument. The righteousness that comes from the law demands achievement, “the person who does these things will live by them.” But the righteousness that comes from faith is different. It does not require heroic spiritual effort. It does not ask us ...
Romans 8:26–39 and Matthew 13:31–33, 44–52 Sometimes in life words seem to completely fail us. We stand in front of a situation, an illness, a grief, a fear, a hope, or perhaps just something that seems absolutely ridiculous, and we simply don’t know what to say about it. Sometimes we may try to pray, but the sentences don’t actually come out. We try to make sense of things, but our thoughts feel all confused. And it’s precisely there, in that honest, vulnerable place, that Paul gives us one of the most comforting promises anywhere in the Bible: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.” When we don’t know how to pray, the Spirit prays in us. When we don’t know what to ask for, the Spirit prays with feelings too deep for words. And that’s a reminder that the Christian life is never about our strength, our clever words or our spiritual performance. It begins with God, continues with God, and is sustained by God… We are held by God long before we ever realise we are being held...