All About GOD - Growing Relationships with Jesus and Others

God is for you

God is FOR you. Easter, 2021

Listen to this podcast here: https://www.pastorwoman.net/podcast/episode/459cdea2/god-is-for-you...

The question was a reasonable one: 'why go into the details about Jesus' trials? I get it--Jesus died. Can't we just move on over to the part that matters about Easter? Jesus rose from the grave ... he was resurrected!'

Well, looking at the historical record of Jesus' last hours with his disciples, his emotional prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane as he wrestles with the notion that there has to be another way. . . there has to be another way than what he is about to face at the hands of both the Romans and the Jewish leaders. Being a bystander as first one friend betrays him and another denies him . . . gives us greater understanding of just how God loves us. What he willingly goes through to give mankind a way for relationship with him is staggering when seen up close.

If you ever have a doubt, you should not:

God is FOR you.

Look at how Paul describes this:

“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? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding [going to bat] for us.” Romans 8.31-34

That one line surely must scream off the page at you, doesn’t it?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

I don’t know about you, but if I rightly understand this and remember it, it changes everything!

If God is for us, who can be against us? In brief, Paul then shows us what he means by ‘God is for us’---he gave up his Son for us, which, if he did that, then he will graciously give us all that we need. God has chosen us, and then justified us, (made us right with him), so no one can condemn us . . . Jesus died for us, rose again, sits next to his Father in Heaven, and prays for us. Oh yes, I would say that God is FOR US!

Interestingly enough, anyone who knows the Scriptures well, will identify with Paul’s wording about God ‘not sparing his own Son, giving him up’. ‘See, that was what God had said about Abraham in Genesis chapter 22, “You have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” Ah, the Old Testament tied in with the New Testament, fulfilled in Jesus.

Since our God is FOR us, no one can condemn us . . . is that true? Many of us forget this truth and allow others to condemn us. We let others wag the long finger of condemnation at us—the harsh sting of criticism, the shaking head of disapproval, the regular reminders of our failures; and, because we permit it, in essence, we condemn ourselves. That ought not be. God is FOR us.

Let this truth wash over you today.

Wait - maybe you condemn yourself all by yourself: 'if only I wasn't ...' 'If only I could ___, then...' 'If only I hadn't ___, then...' Don't you get it? You've got yourself locked in a prison of your own making. How about this 'because God is FOR me, I can go into the day in confidence with him. Because God is for me, his love for me never failing, today is a new day--a day in which I can say with a smile 'this is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it'!*. Whatever is dogging you, give it to the Lord and let it go. Then go boldly into today.

Remember that, no matter what came before, God is FOR you, and there is Jesus.

Song: There Was Jesus, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CNqhpRycfY

Christine

PastorWoman.com

*Psalm 118.24

0 members like this