Let’s suppose you are a kid again in the 4th grade and every day at recess the big 6th grader who is a bully, threatens you and sometimes beats you up.
You go to school every day scared, insecure, and defeated.
Then you realize your brother has a friend in the 6th grade who is the biggest and strongest guy at school.
So, you go to your brother and ask him to have his friend be on your side.
So he agrees, and the next time this bully comes to get you, you now are courageous, secure, and victorious. Why?
It is not because you have changed and suddenly gotten bigger and stronger, it is because of who is on your side.
We as believers have the Lord on our side!
We didn’t suddenly become stronger and able to defeat our enemy, Christ does it through us.
In my series of blogs through Romans 6-8, we have come to Romans 8:31:
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”
These things include all that Paul has written in Romans up to this point about the great salvation we have in Christ.
We were delivered from the penalty of sin; we were declared righteous; we have a standing in grace; we have peace with God; and we have been crucified, buried, and raised with Christ, so that we are saved from the power of sin to rule over us.
We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit who reproduces Christ’s life through us.
It also includes the past, present, and future aspects of Christ’s great salvation which are justification, sanctification, and glorification!
Paul asks next, “If God is for us, who is against us?”
The idea is this, “What should we say in response to these things in view of the fact that God is on our side; what can any enemy possibly achieve against us?”
We are left speechless! How should we respond?
We should just praise, thank, and glorify our God! All we can do is stand in open-mouthed amazement and awe!
Our enemies include the power of sin working through the flesh, the world, and Satan and his host.
They are all against us and try to hinder our walk with Christ and take away our sense of security in this life.
The power of any possible enemy is seen as utterly and totally weak in comparison to our all-powerful God!
Who is greater than God? No one and no thing!
We can rejoice because we and God are a majority.
He is for us in every aspect, He saved us, and He gives us victory, and will take us to heaven someday to be with Him!
We must believe this truth and apply it to our lives.
As we trust this reality we can live without fear and live in security and victory.
An African missionary tells how a number of years ago, when he went to a certain unreached tribe, he was held in such suspicion that the natives put him in a little hut and gave orders that no one was to feed him on penalty of death.
Each day an African woman passed by his hut with a basket of Cassava roots on her head.
She never looked at him, but a root always fell from her basket.
And so the Lord fed him, as surely as the ravens fed Elijah.
God was for him.
Little did it matter that the natives were against him!
Let’s live knowing God is for us!
Blessings!
Pastor Ken Keeler, Director of Church Ministries