ESOCS Devotional 8 September 2025 – People Don’t Save People
MEMORY VERSE: “So it is God who decides to show mercy. We can neither choose it nor work for it.” Romans 9:16 NLT
TEXT: ROMANS: 9:15-33
For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.” 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.” 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
22 What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
25 As He says also in Hosea:
“I will call them My people, who were not My people,
And her beloved, who was not beloved.”
26 “And it shall come to pass in the place where it was said to them,
‘You are not My people,’
There they shall be called sons of the living God.”
27 Isaiah also cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea,
The remnant will be saved.
28 For He will finish the work and cut it short in righteousness,
Because the Lord will make a short work upon the earth.”
29 And as Isaiah said before:
“Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed,
We would have become like Sodom,
And we would have been made like Gomorrah.”
30 What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith; 31 but Israel, pursuing the law of righteousness, has not attained to the law of righteousness. 32 Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:
“Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense,
And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.”
Read Other ESOCS Devotional Here
If you watch enough horror movies, you’ll see a pattern in the minutes before the bad guy takes his next victim.
An unsuspecting person comes home to an empty house and instead of switching on the lights, he or she drops the keys, hangs up a coat, and then heads to the kitchen or bedroom. A few minutes later, a noise outside or upstairs draws the character toward their eventual demise.
Just like God was at work in Israel’s story, He is at work in our loved one’s stories. Sadly, seeing someone walk willingly into destruction doesn’t just happen in movies. Maybe you’ve got a roommate who dates all the wrong guys or a friend who refuses to get help with an addiction. When someone we love ignores the truth, we can so clearly see, it leaves us frustrated and heartbroken.
In Romans 9, the apostle Paul expresses a similar sadness over his fellow Israelites. The nation of Israel was God’s chosen people, but they were so absorbed with what they were doing for God, they didn’t see God in Jesus. Equally divine and human, Jesus was the rescuer they had been waiting for, but they missed it because He didn’t fit their ideas of who the Messiah would be.
Paul’s hope came from his understanding that God is sovereign and God is good. We can go to great lengths to help those around us, then, lose heart when we don’t see results. But Paul reminds us in Romans 9:16 that salvation does not “depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.”
People don’t save people; Jesus does. Just like God was at work in Israel’s story, He is at work in our loved one’s stories. And just like Paul never gave up on telling others about Jesus, we should never give up on pointing our loved ones to the truth. Because at just the right time and in just the right moment, God makes Himself known.
CHALLENGES
- Is there anyone you’ve been asking God to rescue for a long time? How has waiting to see that prayer fulfilled affected your faith?
- As you think about the unbelieving and hurting people in your life, is there anyone you’ve taken unnecessary responsibility for?
PRAYER POINT
- Father, help me to drop every weight only you were meant to bear, in Jesus name Amen.
FURTHER READING: 1 Samuel 16:1-13; 2 Samuel 16:11-23; Romans 5:1-11
ESOCS Devotional 8 September 2025
