Romans 8:17Plain English VersionWe joined up with Jesus Christ, God’s son, so we are part of God’s family now, and we will get some of the good things that God gives to his son. But people gave Jesus a lot of trouble, and they will give us a lot of trouble too, because we belong to him. Yes, we will get trouble, and we will get good things too. See the chapter |
Paul kept on talking. He said, “Now I’m asking God to keep you safe, and to keep you believing the true message that God is very good to you and will save you. If you keep on believing that message, you will grow strong for God, and you will know that you are in God’s family, and God will give you the good life that he is keeping for his own people.
and you will tell them the true message about me. It will be like you will open their eyes so that they can see things properly. They will come to God. Then Satan, the boss over the bad spirits, he will not control them with his power any more. It is like they are always in the dark now, but they will come into the light. They will believe in me, and they will stop believing lies. And then God will say they are not guilty of the bad things they did, and they will be God’s people.’ Jesus said that to me.”
You see, the law that came from Moses couldn’t help us. We were too weak. If we thought about some bad thing that we wanted to do, then we couldn’t help ourselves, we just did it. That law just made us think about those bad things, and then we wanted to do them. But God set us free from all that. He sent his own son to us. Jesus had the same sort of body that we bad people have. Then God punished him instead of us. Jesus died instead of us.
And this is what God planned. He will be good to everyone that believes the good news about Jesus. It doesn’t matter if they are Jews, or not Jews. If they believe in Jesus, God will save them. Both will get what God promised. They both belong to the same mob now. They both belong to God, just like arms and legs belong to the same body.
Yes, I tell people the message about Jesus. Some people don’t like it, and they give me trouble. But that doesn’t matter, that message helps people that believe it. You believe it, so it helps you. So I am happy, and I keep on telling it. You know that Jesus Christ got a lot of trouble. In the same way, I get a lot of trouble. But I want to keep on helping his people. They are the church. They are like the body of Jesus Christ.