Okay, let's see if I can try to find something about Romans 9 in your link. Here is the only thing I could find:
This...is...I don't mean to be harsh here, but this, in no way, shape, or form is a contextual interpretation of Romans 9. Romans 9, in no way shape or form, is speaking about a "rise above your circumstances sort of thing." If this is the way that you handle Scripture, then it is no wonder why you are confused about what it says.
In Romans 9, Paul is answering how, if God is so powerful, why do most of the Jews not believe in the gospel? It begins:
So, not all who are descended from Israel are actually Israel. It's not the children physically descended from Abraham, but it is the ones spiritually connected to Abraham who are God's children:
The chosen people of God are chosen by HIS grace and HIS purpose in election:
Salvation does not depend on your physical heritage or your works, it depends solely on God's grace. This is why most of the Jews of Paul's day do not believe...because they were not chosen.
Next verse. God mercies whom He wants and He hardens whom He wants. He raised Pharoah up and then condemned Him for the purpose of proclaiming His name in all the earth. God used evil Pharoah for His own purposes and then held Pharoah responsible for his sin.
Then, here is the next verse, the Potter verse:
So Paul is answering the objection of someone who questions God for hardening Pharoah. The Potter has the right over the clay to harden some (like Pharoah) or show mercy to some and make them for noble purposes (his elect children of promise). It is useless to ask "why does God still hold us responsible if we can't resist His will?" because it is His sovereign right to make some pots for noble use and some for common use.
There is nothing in Romans 9 about "rising above your circumstance".
Romans 9 in context is not what you are making it out to be. You are taking the words from Romans 9 and using them out of context to try an silence anyone who dares to disagree with your point of view.
Back up to Romans 2. 5 But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. 6 God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”[a] 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.
12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
It isn't by works they are saved but they are making themselves known by their choices. Their consciences, even without the law, are condemning or exonerating them. Romans 3 then tackles the issue that by faith we are saved and the law informs of transgressions. Jump to Romans 8
. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ
This reaffirms Romans 2. We know them by their fruits of the spirit, Galatians 5:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law
Then Romans 8 goes into the matter that he foreknew (by their choices) so they were given to the path of glory as brothers and sisters to the firstborn Son. Romans 9 is speaking of the jews. There is this attitude that they are destined to glory and that by the law they are validated to a specific position. Having already discussed the nuances of the law and faith he is culminating his position that
30 What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. 32 Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone. 33 As it is written:
“See, I lay in Zion a stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall,
and the one who believes in him will never be put to shame.”[m]
Your potter verse is merely dealing with the whining that insues when one complains they were born to a particular station in life and are victims of circumstance. It is more of a rise above your perceived difficulties. Accept your circumstances for that is your lot in life and move forward in faith.
Romans 10 then continues to differentiate between the attitude of those who feel justified by the law vs those who act in faith. Romans 11 then states that this does not mean to those who were given the law are not excluded for that reason but that by their transgressions opportunity has been afforded to the gentiles.
