ROMANS 8:29-30: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” NKJV

OBSERVATION: What does it mean – “…All things work together for good to those who love God…”? What place does suffering have in my life as a follower of Jesus Christ? Is my Christian walk a life of blessing and victory or battle and disappointment?

As I read Romans 8 it becomes clear. The call to walk after the Spirit is both. It is a life filled with victories and struggles. It is a life filled with things we do not understand and things revealed to us by the Spirit. It is many times three steps forward and two steps back.

Why would the Spirit, writing through the Apostle Paul, find it necessary to assure us of our eternal outcome? It is because it is so easy for us to misunderstand the process. We have been crucified with Christ. Yet, as Paul points out in Romans 7, there is a very real struggle between our new and old man (our spirit and our flesh).

Our new nature, the spirit born of God, delights in the law of God and desires to do His will. However, the old man never changes. It is dealt a death blow through the cross of Christ yet it tries to usurp the new man every day. We are engaged in this battle and there is no escape from it. We will either be overcome by it – or we will become overcomers as we walk after the Spirit in the power of His grace.

“For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” (Rom 7:22-25 NKJV)

We do not grow from our victories. We grow from our struggles. During the struggle, it is easy to forget the purpose of God in all that we are experiencing. So, the Holy Spirit reminds us.

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

There is a purpose in our suffering. There is a goal for our struggle. It is not our defeat – it is our sanctification. We are called according to His purpose, yet our old man stands in the way. As we encounter the cross daily we are called to die to ourselves and to live in Christ. During this process, it is easy to become discouraged if we take our eyes off God’s eternal purpose.

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”

Life is not merely a haphazard set of circumstances with no purpose. Even the enemy of our soul’s attacks is brought into submission to the calling and purpose of God. We are called to become like Jesus! For this transformation to take place we must daily die to our old nature and live in the power of the Spirit. This does not happen automatically. It happens as we face the mountains of our old nature and surrender them to Jesus at the cross.

Our suffering brings us to Christ!

God’s ultimate goal is to allow us to share in His glory. The wonderful Hymn, “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand”, proclaims this glorious day.

When He shall come with trumpet sound
Oh, may I then in Him be found
Dressed in His righteousness alone
Faultless to stand before the throne

On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand

The Christian life is one of disrobing our old man and his worn-out clothes and being clothed in the righteousness of Christ. I don’t want to give up my favorite T-shirt and jeans (an analogy to my old man). Yet, I cannot be clothed by His righteousness if I hang on to them. The suffering of this life helps me see the worthlessness of my old rags and I run to the cross to be clothed in Christ!

So, Paul closes this wonderful chapter with these words of assurance. Every believer who trusts in Christ will experience this transformation. We will see God’s good hand in everything we suffer. Our suffering will not pull us away from God – it will draw us closer and closer to Christ! And, in the end, we will proclaim…

“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 YOUR SAKE WE ARE KILLED ALL DAY LONG; WE ARE ACCOUNTED AS SHEEP FOR THE SLAUGHTER.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who 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 created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:35-39 NKJV)

In Jesus’ Name!