Journey through the Book of Romans

Paul Exhorts Believers to Glorify God Together

Romans 15:7-13 Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God. For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy; as it is written, “Therefore I will give praise to You among the Gentiles, And I will sing to Your name.” Again he says, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people.” And again, “Praise the Lord all you Gentiles, And let all the peoples praise Him.” Again Isaiah says, “There shall come the root of Jesse, And He who arises to rule over the Gentiles, In Him shall the Gentiles hope.” Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. NKJV

Paul left us in the last study imploring us to be of “one mind” and “one voice” as we live to glorify God the Father with our individual lives and in our relationships to one another. Paul amps up that exhortation to the Christians in Rome by reminding them of the sullied, sower, and sinful spiritual condition they (and us) were in when our Lord Jesus Christ reached down into the sewer pit of sin we were swimming around in and lifted us out and washed us from our filth in His Own Blood and poured His Love into our hearts affirming to us that we have become His son or daughter and with that in our minds we should be eagerly ready to receive willingly or respond favorably to those people that exemplify by the fruit of their lives forgiveness from our Lord Jesus by way of regeneration and new birth. What Paul is exhorting us to do (engage in or carry out in actuality?) is what our Lord Jesus did for us on the Cross and what He did for the disciples daily for 31/2 years on the earth and as He drew nearer and nearer to that ultimate sacrifice on the Cross He said these words to them and to us, John 15:7-12 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” NKJV

Paul affirms God’s Plan all along even before He made the world, that He would reconcile all of His Created human beings in Christ Jesus, so Paul refers here to our Lord as the “Servant” to the Jews despite the majority being blinded to this reality, as the Apostle Peter declared to many lost Jews with these words in his sermon, Acts 3:13-23 “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life, the One whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses. And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all. And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time.” Moses said, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed to everything He says to you. And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.” NKJV

It was our Lord Jesus Christ death, burial, and resurrection from the dead that was the culmination and fulfillment of the promises made to the father’s Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When Jacob wrestled with “The Angel of the Lord” after being given the vision of the steps or stairway to heaven, it was a reality for Jacob seeing the access from earth to heaven and it pictures our Lord Jesus Christ (The Angel of the Lord that visited Jacob) as that “stairway” the only stairway to heaven for man, Jew or Gentile. Paul refers to our Lord’s fulfillment on Calvary as confirmation of the promises made to the Jew, but in contrast Paul refers our Lord’s fulfillment on Calvary as “mercy” shown to the Gentiles because they were without the One True God in this world and therefore left to their vain pagan practices of worshiping statues, images, and even creation (sun, stars, and moon, etc.). Our Lord Jesus made mention of this when speaking to the woman at the well and this was the discourse that took place between the two of them, John 4:20-26 “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.” NKJV (Note: a Samaritan is half Jew & half Gentile and so she and all Samaritans were considered to be all Gentile and (John 4:7-9) confirms this truth). Paul then prays for these Gentile Christians in Rome that our God of “confident expectancy” would fill them up to complete satisfaction in His “confident expectation” that what He has begun “in them” making them new creations in Christ Jesus our Lord, so He (God the Father) will finish or complete by the Power of His Spirit to them and in them.

“The end of our reception by Christ is that we might glorify God in this world, and be glorified with Him in that to come. It was the glory of God, and our glory in the enjoyment of God, that Christ had in His eye when He condescended to receive us. We are called to an eternal glory by Christ Jesus, John 17:24. See to what He received us - to a happiness transcending all comprehension; see for what He received us - for His Father’s glory; He had this in His Eye in all the instances of His favour to us.” Matthew Henry

“An honest heart seeks to please God in all things and offend Him in none. An honest heart is open to the Word. An honest heart loves the Truth.” A. W. Pink

“It is our remembrance of where Christ Jesus our Lord found us wallowing in sin that should move us to welcome anyone and everyone that He has forgiven as He did us.” Clifford D. Tate, Sr.

If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ and His amazing healing power, pray this from your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ (you speaking directly to Him), Dear Lord Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner and I need Your forgiveness. I believe You shed Your Blood and died for my sins. I believe that You rose from the dead proving that You alone are God. I repent of my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I ask You Dear Lord Jesus to come into my heart and take control of my life. I want You to be my Lord, Savior, and my God. Amen...


Sincerely in Christ,


Clifford D. Tate, Sr.

Author of “Silent Assassins of the Soul - Are you Broken by Pornography and Masturbation? You can be Restored by the Lord Jesus Christ and brought into Deliverance, Freedom, and Victory! A Guide for Men and Women in the Enemy’s Crosshairs” e-book available now @ Amazon Kindle, @ Apple I Bookstore for IPod, Barnes and Noble for Nook, Reader Store for Sony Reade, Kobo, Copia, Gardners, Baker and Taylor, and eBookPie…