Skip to main content

Day 2 Romans 11:33-36 Devotional

By August 29, 2017Daily Devotional

Pray:

Ask God to orient or reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.

Read:

Romans 11:33-36,

33 “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! 34 ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor?’ 35 ‘Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?’ 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.”

Understand:

Think about the verses you’ve just read. These are Paul’s words. This is how he concludes all that he laid out in his letter concerning the works of God. William McDonald summarizes Paul’s thoughts concisely and succinctly when he wrote:

Paul has expounded the marvelous plan of salvation by which a just God can save ungodly sinners and still be just in doing so. He has shown how Christ’s work brought more glory to God and more blessing to men than Adam lost through his sin. He has explained how grace produces holy living in a way that law could never do. He has traced the unbreakable chain of God’s purpose from foreknowledge to eventual glorification. He has set forth the doctrine of sovereign election and the companion doctrine of human responsibility. And he has traced the justice and harmony of God’s dealings with Israel and the nations.

As Paul thinks back over all he has written, he’s moved at the depth of the riches of God. It would be like climbing to the top of a high cliff and, after hours of climbing, stop to look back at the beauty and wonder of all it took to get there.

Paul stops and contemplates God’s wisdom and knowledge. His conclusion is that it’s unsearchable; it’s beyond tracing out! He knows the limits of human reason and words. Yes, some of God’s wisdom can be known, but not all of it. We are finite beings trying to comprehend an infinite Creator; it’s impossible for us to ever fully know Him in our limited minds.

Paul also thought about the riches of God—don’t read over that to quickly! Think about all that we’ve seen over the last eight months as we’ve gone through Romans. We’ve seen that God is rich in mercy, love, grace, faithfulness, power, and goodness—so rich that we are unable to measure the depth of it.

Notice, too, that all of this doesn’t cause Paul to be filled with anxiety and fear, but rather it causes him to breakout in praise! Isn’t that amazing? In fact, I think it is encouraging. There may be things we don’t know or fully understand, but we can still have confidence in knowing that what God has revealed about Himself is adequate and accurate.

Apply:

So what do we do with all this? We don’t walk around in fear and anxiety. We place our confidence in God, in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. We let our minds plumb the depth of God’s riches, knowing that we will never reach the bottom of them. As we do these things, we let the Spirit move us to praise.

Why can/should we do this? Because the God that we and Paul praise is worthy! He is the Alpha and the Omega—the Creator, the sustainer and ruler, and the goal of all things! Read that again… That’s the God we serve; the One we praise above all others!

Will you rest in Christ today? Will you give Him all that you have before you today and decide right now to live for His Glory? The interesting thing is…if you choose to live this way, you’ll find yourself doing just what Paul was doing—offering your own doxology of praise.

*From what you have just read and considered: What is a personal implication/application for your life today?

Live:

(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.)
Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today. KEEP PRAYING THROUGHOUT YOUR DAY.

 

Inspiration and insight for the devotionals came from the following books: Reading Romans with John Stott; The Message of Romans: God’s Good News for the World (The Bible Speaks Today Series), Stott, John; Romans (The NIV Application Commentary Book 6) Moo, Douglas J.; Encountering the Book of Romans: A Theological Survey (Encountering Biblical Studies) Moo, Douglas J.; Believers Bible Commentary; The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, with the New International Version, Romans through Galatians; NIV Application Study Bible. The Cambridge Bible Commentary, Romans, Best, Ernest. Romans 8-16 For You: For reading, for feeding (God’s Word For You – Romans Series Book 2, Keller, Timothy.

Leave a Reply