Healing Rays of Righteousness

Read Romans 8:28-39

We are quick to classify significant events as either “tragic” or “triumphant” based on our very limited knowledge and insight.  However, we need to admit that such simplistic classifications do not and cannot fully describe nor explain the whys and wherefores of such events.

What is so visible to us in regards to our every experience or situation in life is, in fact, so small, so miniscule, in comparison to what God knows, sees, and purposes for us.  He sees and knows the big and eternal picture of the world in which we live.  And he knows every little detail about us because he created us and breathed life and purpose into our bodies.  And so it is only reasonable to believe that his perspective of any event or situation happening to us would be much different and more accurate than ours.

The Biblical story of Jesus, from the cradle in Bethlehem to the cross in Jerusalem, has dramatically revealed to us the amazing extreme of God’s everlasting love, and gloriously confirms that God is for us.  That story is summed up in these two verses from John’s gospel – “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”  (3:16-17).   

I will always remember one of my seminary professors, J.C. Wenger, frequently saying, “The yardstick of God’s love is Golgotha.”      

In these verses from Romans 8, the apostle, Paul, inspires our thinking and response by asking two questions.  His first question is this – “What then, shall we say in response to these things?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (vv. 31-32).   

Paul is emphatically trying to convince us that written on the underside of every experience in our life, both the good and bad, is the holy seal of assurance, “God is for you.”  Unfortunately, some have misunderstood verse 28 and being disappointed, have become confused and discouraged.  I think it is very important to note what this verse does not say as well as what it does say;

1. It does not say God causes everything that happens. He doesn’t.
2. It does not say that everything that happens is “good.” It isn’t.
3. It does not say that all things are working for the “good” in terms of health, wealth,and success.  They are not.
4. It does not say that everything is going to work out for “good” for all people.           The truth is that God can do some things for those walking with him that he cannot    do for those running away from him.

Verse 29 clearly identifies the “good” promised in this scripture as the ability “to be conformed to the image of his Son.”  To accomplish this, God uses all things, the good and the bad, the joys and the tears, the successes and the failures to shape us into the likeness of his Son, Jesus.  And most certainly, God does not waste any events or experiences in our life and world toward accomplishing his work of transforming us into the person he created us to become.

Paul says we know this because God is for us.  Pause and think about what you just read.  God is for us,  -not “may be” -not “has been” -not “was” -not “will be” — but “God is for us.”  Can it really be so?  Today, at this very hour, this very minute and every minute, he is for us.

Paul’s second question is this – “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”  Illustrating from his personal experience of hardships and sufferings, Paul lists those things that can cause us to question God’s love for us, and emphatically declares that none of these things can ever separate us from Christ’s love.

Rather than separating us from the love of Christ, Paul declares that the love of Christ makes us “more than conquerors” over all these difficulties and sufferings.  (v.37).  In other words, our sufferings do not defeat and separate us from the love of Christ, but rather the love of Christ defeats our sufferings and strengthens our bond of relationship to him.  Truly, we are the dearly loved, adopted children of God.

In verse 38 Paul answers his own two questions, with a powerful, all-inclusive declaration regarding the love of God for us – “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  This is Paul’s testimony of faith from his own life of many very difficult, life-threatening experiences.

I know that if all I had to go on was what is visible and tangible to me in difficult and tragic events, I would soon become discouraged, afraid, and without hope.  However, as a follower of Jesus Christ I can live joyously and hopeful, in spite of these circumstances, because I have confidence in the truth and promises of Romans 8:28-39.

God is present with us every moment or every day.  He has promised “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  He is by our side cheering us on, applauding our accomplishments.  He is there to pick us up when we stumble and fall, and he puts his arms around us to comfort us when we hurt and cry.  God is always for us, and in every situation of life working for our good.  Thanks be to God!