God’s Personal Involvement, Continued

20 Mar

God’s Personal Involvement, Continued

My husband’s father lost two teenaged sisters during the flu pandemic of 1918, aunts that my husband never got to meet. Right now we are living through another pandemic and find ourselves in circumstances that can sometimes seem to be a worst case scenario. When bad things happen to us or to loved ones, we find ourselves wondering why.

Many times we hear Romans 8:28 recited as proof against discouragement: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose.”

We hear this verse so often that it has become a sort of mantra, a cliché for acceptance of whatever happens in our lives, as if it were entirely up to us. But God didn’t leave us hanging with only partial support here. He gave us the whole enchilada and it is written in the verses that precede verse twenty-eight. Let’s take a look at His part in all this, starting with Romans 8:22-23:

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

Remember that pretty much everything to do with salvation has three tenses to it:

We were saved, redeemed, adopted when we accepted, by faith, Jesus Christ as Savior. That’s past tense.
For the rest of our lives we will continue to learn what that means in terms of practical application, and spiritual maturity because we have the first fruits of the Spirit. That is present tense.
When we meet Jesus face to face, when we leave our earthly bodies behind, we will experience the final salvation, redemption, and adoption in terms of the perfection of Heavenly bodies and a sin-free environment. No more sin, suffering, disease, or death. That’s future tense.

Romans 8:24-25 goes on to say:

“For in this hope we were saved. [The hope here is the hope of the future in heaven, when we will experience the culmination of all that Scripture teaches about salvation, and we will be in the presence of God in all His glory. This is the Hope that anchors us to the Holy of Holies in heaven with Jesus Christ] Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

When we don’t know why God allows pain and suffering into our lives, we wait with patience because of the hope that is within us – that hope that came with salvation. Hope requires Faith: if our trials were things we could take care of or mitigate by ourselves, no faith would be required and we would miss the growth that comes with exercising it. Besides, Hebrews 11:6 tells us, “…without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.”

Moving on in our contextual exploration, Romans 8:26-27 tells us:

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He [God the Father] who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

So here we have the entire Trinity involved in our lives when we are at our weakest. The Spirit intercedes for us with God, according to God’s will, and Jesus, though not mentioned here, is our advocate with the Father when we sin according to 1 John 2. The implication is that, having stood in our place as our sacrifice, He now has the right to plead with the Father on our behalf, in opposition to the accusations of our enemy, Satan.

Jim Logan, author of Regaining Surrendered Ground says that when Satan’s fiery darts go through God’s hedge of protection, they become tools in God’s hand. Therefore, nothing is wasted in our spiritual lives…unless we choose to defy and ignore God’s working through hard times in us. We do that by holding on to anger and resentment until it becomes bitterness towards God. Yes we have to mourn the changes in our lives, God made us that way; Jesus Christ himself mourned. But then we move on, with thanksgiving, and look for the good thing that God is doing in our lives.

Now we can look at Romans 8:28 in context:

“And [as a result of all this] we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”

We are not alone, ever! We have the Holy Spirit and our Lord Jesus Christ praying on our behalf, interpreting to God the Father what we ourselves have no words for, and advocating for us before the Father Himself.