God Wants Us
Everything God does is of love. He is incapable of doing anything outside of love. We might not understand His way, but that is the truth nevertheless.
Beginning from our creation, He created us because He wanted us to exist, we were never a mistake, no, God intentionally created us because He loves us. Then came our salvation: He sent His Son, Jesus to this world to die in our place because He loves us. The cross of Jesus Christ is God's provision for our salvation, He made His Son who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Christ.
Next, is our life after the cross. We might think everything was over when we received Christ, we now just need to wait to be fetched to go to Heaven, and life on earth is just a stroll. But that is not the case. It was the end of old life but it was the beginning of our new life in Christ.
Once we are born again, we become God’s children, literally. And just like we believe our children are in this world for a purpose, to do something meaningful with their lives, it is the same thing with God, who is now our Father. We are not meant to just stroll on the earth, waiting for the last day of our lives, we all have a unique purpose that God has set when He created us.
We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. Romans 8:29-30
Jesus said that no one could come to Him unless the Father sent them to Him (John 6:44), in other words, no one can be saved unless God sent them to Jesus; they might go to a church one day at an invitation of a friend, and there they heard the Gospel and they believed. Or they might flip to a certain channel and ‘stumble’ upon a certain sermon that preached the cross of Jesus Christ and decided to be Christ’s. God is behind it. Our salvation is not an accident, it is predestinated, that is why He called us to come to Jesus, and when we did, He justified us. And that is just the beginning of our exciting walk with Him, we are now onto the last part: to be glorified.
The Glory of God
The word glory in Hebrew is kabod, it is a rich word that means all these: honour, abundance, riches, reputation, dignity, wealth. When Moses asked God to show him His glory, God responded and said, “I will let all my goodness pass before you.” (Exodus 33:18-22). Glory is God’s goodness, so when God says He will glorify us, He is saying that He will bestow unto us good reputations, from Him and also from men, as well as honour, abundance, and riches. Not because we are good, but because He is good. His glory is part of His grace that He gives unto us as a gift, and it is all because we have been made one with His Son, He now treats us the way He treats Jesus.
It is God's heart to show the exceeding riches of His glory to us who are in Christ Jesus, but we must believe this truth. Especially because life in this world comes with tribulations. The biggest misconception about Christianity is that once someone is saved, life is a happily-ever-after, no pains, no problems, no persecutions. That is not true, they who live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (1 Timothy 3:12).
As I ponder upon this truth shared by Paul in Romans chapter eight, I think tribulations serve a purpose, and when we know the purpose, it will change how we deal with them.
For Paul, it seems that the more tribulations he faced, the surer he was of God’s love for him. Instead of breaking him and his faith, he grew stronger in God’s love for him and I am sure his love for God. You see, God who has proven His great love for us through the sacrifice of His Son for us, can never stop loving us. So what Paul was saying in Romans chapter eight when he asked what could separate us from the love of God was exactly that. He was looking at all the external factors (famine, persecutions, sword) because he knew God would not and he would not, and he came to the conclusion that truly nothing can separate God’s love from him. Paul was strongly rooted in his faith that God will let all His goodness manifest in his life.
God’s Love, Our Victory
The devil always wants to break us and our faith in God through tribulations. He uses pains and troubles to try to convince us that God is not as good as He says He is. He knows that if he can make us doubt God, he already won the battle halfway.
God’s love is our strong wall, our defense. It serves us good to always have the best opinion of God in our hearts and minds. That is why the cross of Jesus Christ is the sure proof of God’s love that the devil can never overthrow. Would you give up your son to die for a stranger, a criminal? God did. That can only be love.
When we stand on His love, there is nothing that this world or the enemy can bring upon us that prospers. Because when we are truly convinced that God loves us, according to our faith it is, whatever we are believing God for, we shall receive. This is why Paul said that we are more than conquerors through God who loves us.
Beloved, we were already overcomers when we believe in Jesus Christ, because He had overcome the world. But now that we have been reconciled with God and we have God on our side, we are more than conquerors because God will glorify us, He will surely show His exceeding kindness towards us in this lifetime and beyond. Amen.
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?
He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifies.
Who is he that condemns? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:31-39
