The strong have an obligation to bear with the failing of the weak. Don’t please yourself. Please your neighbor for his good, and build him up. Christ did not please himself. What was written in the past was for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of Scripture we might have hope. May the God of endurance and encouragement help us live in harmony with one another, that together we might glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome one another as Christ welcomed you. Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God’s truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and so the Gentiles will glorify God for His mercy in fulfillment of the Bible. May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may abound in hope. Paul was satisfied about them, but he wrote to remind them, because of the grace of God given to him to be a minister of Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In Jesus he has reason to be proud of his work for God. He speaks of what Christ has accomplished through him to bring Gentiles to obedience in word and deed. From Jerusalem to Illyricum he fulfilled the ministry of the gospel of Christ – it was Paul’s ambition to preach the gospel where it hadn’t been heard. This is why Paul was delayed in coming to Rome. He longed to come to them for years, and there is no work for him in those regions any longer. He hoped to see them in passing on his way to Spain. He was going to Jerusalem to bring aid to the saints first. Macedonia and Achaia owed help to the poor in Jerusalem. If Gentiles came to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material blessings. He appealed to them by our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of the Spirit, to strive together with him in their prayers to God on his behalf, to be delivered from unbelievers in Judea, and that his service for Jerusalem would be acceptable to the saints, so that by God’s will he would come to them with joy and be refreshed in their company.
To follow Christ is to deny yourself. We are free in Christ, but our liberty shouldn’t be used to harm our brothers and sisters in Christ. Christ denied Himself, so, we ought to deny ourselves for Him and for our neighbors. God fills us with hope in believing. Pray that God would give us a singular purpose like Paul – to bring friends and family to the obedience of the gospel. Pray that God would strengthen our church to support missions to places where the gospel hasn’t been made known. Paul was seeking to go to the end of the earth for the gospel. He also asked the church in Rome to pray that he would be delivered from unbelievers in Judea. Let us pray for each other, and for those we send out, that God would protect us. That God would further His message of the good news of salvation through the death and resurrection of Christ through us. May we ask and attempt great things for our great God depending upon His power at work in us.