“No matter what God brings into our lives, it’s always done in love.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – June 4, 2024
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Romans 8:35-37
I’m in a waiting season. Waiting for the Lord to complete the physical healing that He started in me after a cancer diagnosis in the summer of 2023. It’s easy to see His love in big victories, like when He caused massive initial healing to happen in my body within just the first few months after learning I had cancer. But in waiting for Him to complete what He started, it can be more difficult in various moments to emotionally experience His love.
However, there is an important truth I am focusing on that is holding my heart steady: everything the Lord does for us and allows in our lives comes from the table of His affection. It’s impossible for it to be any other way. God always gives His loving, compassionate heart with everything He does toward us and gives to us because that is who He is. He is love. Love isn’t just something that He does. It’s not simply an action that He takes. Love is His essence. It’s His person.
This means that He cannot give without love and affection, even if what He allows into our lives is pain, trouble, or hardship—or a long wait of deliverance. Jesus will never allow anything in our lives that isn’t allowed in love too. And, He will never allow anything that isn’t ultimately good for us.
Romans 8:28, a favorite verse for many, talks about the good that God gives His children. It says He works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.
When most of us quote this verse, it’s easy to see His love in it. “Great! He is going to make this work out for my good!” But there are those times when we wonder how he could make something good out of something so difficult. However, if we read just one verse further in Romans 8:29, Scripture shows us God’s ultimate good that He promises to bring every one of His children: “For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son . . . and those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
This means that when the Lord allows or brings anything into our lives, it’s not only done in love because that’s who He is, but it’s also with the intention of conforming us into the likeness of His son.
This means that the “good” that comes from God’s love may not look the way we’d like it to look. I may want the good of an easy life, but God wants to give me the good of a transformed life that comes from struggle and makes me look more like Jesus. I may not want to wait for full deliverance; I want resolution now. But God may want to give me the good gift of patience that grants me more of the character of Christ.
This is good news that in whatever prayers God answers, whatever favors He grants, whatever gifts He gives and even whatever trouble He allows . . .no matter what God brings into our lives, it’s always done in love, from His heart of love to make us more like Jesus.
And when you and I are conformed into the image of Christ, we will experience greater joy, fullness, and more of the love that He is as we become more like Him. There is truly nothing better than that. It’s the ultimate good.
“Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).
Prayer
Jesus, you are so beautiful! Everything that you give and allow into my life comes from the love that you are. And everything that you allow into my life is designed to make me more like you. Help me to surrender to your plan for me and trust that you truly are working all things together for my ultimate good. Amen.
Application
Tell someone what God is working out for your good today.
Related Reading
Worship Resource
Peter Mattis: How He Loves
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