And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
What it’s like to live in Romans 8:28
If you live inside this massive promise, your life is more solid and stable than Mount Everest. Nothing can blow you over when you are inside the walls of Romans 8:28. Outside Romans 8:28 all is confusion and anxiety and fear and uncertainty. Outside this promise of all-encompassing future grace there are straw houses of drugs and alcohol and numbing TV and dozens of futile diversions. There are slat walls and tin roofs of fragile investment strategies and fleeting insurance coverage and trivial retirement plans. There are cardboard fortifications of deadbolt locks and alarm systems and antiballistic missiles. Outside are a thousand substitutes for Romans 8:28.
Once you walk through the door of love into the massive, unshakable structure of Romans 8:28 everything changes. There come into your life stability and depth and freedom. You simply can’t be blown over any more. The confidence that a sovereign God governs for your good all the pain and all the pleasure that you will ever experience is an incomparable refuge and security and hope and power in your life. When God’s people really live by the future grace of Romans 8:28 – from measles to the mortuary – they are the freest and strongest and most generous people in the world. Their light shines and people give glory to their Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).
John Piper, Future Grace, pp. 122-123.
Yes! Yes! Amen! Thank you John, and thank you Pastor John.
In Christ,
Steve
I LOVE this verse. It has kept me from despairing in the pit, and has given me great hope in the unrelenting nature of disability–that God is so great so as to cause the worse possible situations to be worked out for our good is very good news indeed. What a good and kind God we have to do this on our behalf.
Great Word! Wow if only Romans 8:28 sank in we would hold onto the exquisite future that this present suffering will reveal!