“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Romans 8:31
I believe my spiritual gift is teaching. This means that I struggle a lot with being proud as well as being a lot smarter and more awesome than you. One of the ways I’ve noticed this manifest itself over the years is when I’m talking with someone about what God’s been teaching us in his word. I’ve found that I’ll almost look down on them if they’ve been comforted by a verse that is ridiculously familiar to every Christian. Like it’s somehow “newbie Christian” to say “Man, I was reading Philippians 4:6-7 the other day and it was so comforting! I mean LISTEN to this: ‘do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.’ Okay brah, and get THIS: ‘And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’ Whoa dude!”
“Yeah man, that’s really cool,” I say, which really means “Yeah man, every Christian in the world knows that verse, and if the Bible were translated into Barkese, so would their dogs.” When someone asks me what God’s been teaching me in the word, I almost feel like I have to live up to my perception as a teacher of the word and give them some incredibly obscure Bible reference that I’ve just been blown away by recently. “Dude, God’s totally rocking my world through Nahum.” Or, “Bro, I’m getting so fed by the genealogies of 1 Chronicles. I mean, you really have to study a lot to understand why it’s so awesome, but you know…I have.” So to throw it out there: if you’ve ever been comforted by a well-known Bible verse and told me about it, you probably got judged. Sorry about that.
I’m in a season of life where I’m starting to derive a lot of comfort from verses I already know and have known for a long, long time. I feel like God really wants me to dig deeper in some of these truths because as I’ve come to learn very intimately, knowing these things alone won’t comfort and benefit me. Knowing these things isn’t the point. Living by that knowledge is. Recently I found great comfort in the most cliche comfort chapter of the Bible: Romans 8. In particular I focused on verses 31 through the end of the chapter. Verse 31 says “What then shall we say to these things. If God is for us, who can be against us?” But reading verse 35 on, where it talks about tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, swords, and being slaughtered like sheep, I had the thought: “Well gosh, Paul, it seems like there are lots of things that can be against us.” He’ll go on to make the point that there is absolutely nothing that is “able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
So here was my train of thought in that section: God is for us. Therefore nothing can be against us. But there ARE things that are against us as verses 35 and 36 make clear. So how do I resolve this? The resolution I found can be summed up in this way: God being for us must carry such an immense weight that the weight of things which are against us are inconsequential by comparison. While many things exist to attack the believer in Christ, the fact that God is for him completely trumps those things. We see this idea earlier in the chapter. In Romans 8:18, Paul says “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” (See also 2 Corinthians 4:17)
I’ve come to believe something in the past couple years that has had a big impact on my thinking and how I approach the Bible: Perspective changes everything. What this means is that while truth is truth whether or not we agree with it, our perspective on the truth determines how it affects us. A believer in Christ and a demon both recognize truth (James 2:19). But their reaction to it makes all the difference in the world. For the Christian, God is worthy to be worshipped. For the demon, not so much. Or here’s an example from my life. Running in a lot of American Christian circles, I’ve often had the idea put in my head that Christianity is under attack from its opponents. They’re taking away prayer in schools, crosses in cemetaries, and want to take “under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance (which- history lesson- wasn’t originally in the pledge).” In other words, I’ve been raised on a victim mentality. As I hear about persecution all over the world, I’m tempted to think of the Church as a quiet little village that’s being ravaged by barbarians. God’s Bride, the Church, is under attack.
But then I started asking myself a question. What is the Church isn’t the one being attacked? What if it’s doing the attacking? Hmmm. Now to be sure, Christians are slaughtered all the time. And many of them have been helpless as they’ve died at the hands of people in power. But I think there’s a fundamental difference between dying while being invaded and dying while being the one to invade. What if the persecution that Christians face isn’t really Satan oppressing the Church? What if it’s Satan desperately trying to hold his defenses? Perhaps the casualties and trials we face are due more to the fact that we’ve invaded enemy territory and the enemy is trying to resist.
When I think of it this way, I’m hopeful. It’s the whole “Glass Half Full or Half Empty” scenario. The truth is that the same amount of water is in there anyway. But our perspective on that reality determines whether we’re happy with it or miserable. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” says 1 John 2:8. “‘And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’” (Matthew 16:18) Jesus came to launch an invasion on the ruler of this world who has now been cast out (John 12:31), and those who believe in him are his plunder. (See Matthew 12:28-29) On a worldly level, it looks like the world is attacking the Church. But what Scripture reveals is that what’s really happening is just the opposite. Understandably, it’s easier to see what’s going on in the earth than to know what’s going on in the spiritual realm. But what we see on the earth is not the true state of things. Therefore, I’ve found the need to shift my perspective to the spiritual state of things. And that’s hard. But that’s the kind of mentality Paul is advocating in Romans 8. We are going to go through so many trials as Christians. It will be easy to feel like the victim. But the truth is that God is for you. And that means that your identity is not that of a victim, but of a conqueror (Romans 8:37).
Okay, so I want to get real practical here. I’ve been in church for practically my whole life and I know so well just how empty it can be to hear “Christianese.” Phrases like “God loves you”, “Jesus loves you”, “He’ll never leave you or forsake you”, “You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you”, “Pray without ceasing”…man, name it. I’ve heard them all. I know how insincere those can all sound. I know how frustratingly easy the people who say them make them sound. But most of all I know the excruciating frustration that comes from hearing those words and knowing that they should comfort you…but they just don’t. And I know how that makes you feel like a subpar Christian. But as a lifetime churchgoer, the past year and a half or so of my life have been some of the most fruitful times in my life of being comforted by the things which usually just bounce right off my heart without ever going in. How that’s happened is where I’m going with all this.
Like I said, the things I’m starting to be really comforted by are the things that every Christian knows. What’s making the difference though is my change of perspective. I’ve been looking at the glass for so long and calling it half-empty. To have the same warfare perspective I wrote about above, you have to look at the world and begin to understand that this is not the true nature of things. God is in control, even when it’s hard to see that. Similarly, you have to stop seeing a half-empty glass when you look in the mirror. Change your perspective. Here’s a question I’ve started asking myself that has changed my life: What does GOD say about me? I know what I think of myself, and it’s pretty pessimistic. “Disappointment” is a frequent adjective I use in self-evaluation. And I don’t think I’m alone in this.
I recently tried to sum up the New Testament. Here’s what I came up with. Truth: God sent his Son to take on our sins so that we could take on his righteousness and be adopted as sons and daughters of God. Our commanded response: Claim what is now rightfully ours. Reap. Store up. Feast. Celebrate. “Again and again in the New Testament we are called to be what we are,” writes Tim Chester. Peter writes that “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence” (2 Peter 1:3). Paul writes that God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). David writes “Blessed is the one whose trangression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.” (Psalm 32:1-2) I could go on and on, but are you seeing the pattern in these verses? These are not verses of lack. They’re verses of abundance. Abundance that it says we possess. While we do need to intercede for one another that we may look more like Christ, that’s not the starting point in either our relationship with God or our relationship with others. Our starting point is worship. Our starting point is what God has already done for us in Christ. Work remains, sure. The fight is not over. But victory is certain. The destiny for believers in Christ is not wrath but salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:9), so we need to live in light of the salvation that is coming.
The Bible is very clear about what is to comfort us. So if we’re not comforted by those things, the problem isn’t with God. It’s with us. If you’re trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together and it doesn’t look anything like the picture on the box, you don’t need to take a second look at the box but rather the way in which you’ve arranged the pieces. Far too many Christians struggle to put pieces together that don’t fit and end up getting weary and frustrated and they eventually give up. Unless you let Scripture define what comfort looks like, you will never truly be comforted by it. It can bless you only on its own terms. The degree to which verses like 2 Peter 1:3, Ephesians 1:3, and Psalm 32:1-2 seem like distant, pleasant-sounding-but-impractical pieces of encouragement is the degree to which our mindset is divorced from God’s mindset. Being comforted by God requires the perspective of God. It’s important to remember that Jesus told the apostles that he does not give to them as the world gives. And it’s also important to remember that comfort is the context of that passage. (See John 14:27)
It all comes down to faith. Too churchy-sounding? Okay, let me put it this way: it all comes down to trust. Do you trust God or don’t you? Comfort is a choice. In my own life, I have found that the deciding factor in whether I am deeply comforted by Scripture or find it bouncing off my chest is whether or not I believe what I’m reading. It’s easy for me to pass by the all-too familiar. It’s easy to pass by Romans 8:1. “Yeah, yeah, ‘no condemnation’, blah, blah….” But wait, what does it mean that God no longer condemns me? What does it mean when Psalm 84:11 says that God is not withholding? Or when Luke 11:13 says that God will give his Holy Spirit to those who ask? Or when God tells us that even though he created the entire universe, he has set his people apart as his own special possession (Leviticus 20:26, Deuteronomy 10:14-16, Psalm 4:3, 1 Peter 2:9-10)? What are the implications for my prayer life when God says that he hears the prayers of the righteous (Psalm 34:15, Proverbs 15:29) and that he counts us as righteous as Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21, Philippians 3:9)? Do you believe that God only deals lovingly with his children (Psalm 25:10, Romans 8:28)? Do you believe God when he says that he has given you so much (Ephesians 1:3, 2 Peter 1:3)? Do you believe him when he says that he looks at you, who he gave EVERYTHING for, and describes you as “Blessed!” (Psalm 32:1-2)?
Or will you continue to count the ways you’ve disappointed God? Will you continue to feel like God is giving everyone else you know so much but is withholding blessings from you? Will you lament that you’re not experiencing the Holy Spirit in your life and the victory over sin that comes with that? Are you going to sit there and feel like God is just way too big to focus on poor little old you? Will you continue to believe that you have to make a case for why he should hear your prayers before you actually start praying? (Just point to Christ, say “I’m with him” and start praying.) Will you insist on believing that God is just barely okay with you and must be persuaded to show any kind of goodness to you? Will you honestly have the audacity to read Romans 8:32 and then feel sorry for yourself because life hasn’t met your expectations?
What God says about you is like the picture on the box of the jigsaw. If your life doesn’t reflect the picture, adjust the pieces. I fight with everything in that last paragraph pretty often. I think most believers do. The things God says about us and his commitment to us in his word sound way too good to be true. Yet they are. It’s true whether we remember it or not. The only question is: will I be comforted by it? Will I believe God when he says it? Every negative thought in the previous paragraph is sharply undermined by the truths of the paragraph before that one. I’ve referenced about 39 different verses in this entry, and many of them have revolutionized my life. I just need to slow down and soak in those all-too-familiar truths and ask myself whether or not God can be believed concerning them. These handful of verses have helped me immensely. What treasures they contain. My encouragement to you all is to soak in these verses, and then go hunting for more. When you trust God enough to believe that he means what he says, reading the Bible becomes so much more rich. I’ve given you 39 verses to think about. There’s over 31,100 more.
Happy hunting.
