“…And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose”. (Romans 8:28)
If you are not numbered among those who are called according to God’s purpose… If you do not love God and are actively working against the purposes of God, don’t dare take refuge in this verse, because the providence of God is a double edged sword. God’s providence includes His government and God’s execution of His government, includes execution of His justice and in His justice He will punish unrepentant sinners, which is a very scary thought.
People who do not love God, the supposed good things which they received from God’s hand during their lifetime, will actually work against them. One of the most fundamental sins of the human heart is the sin of ingratitude. Paul, tells us in the first chapter of Romans, that God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against the ungodly. He tells us that this wrath is not revealed against innocence or against righteousness, but, ungodliness which characterizes in: “..nor did they honor God, nor were they thankful..” The most frequent offense that we commit against God, is our stubborn refusal to honor him as God.
According to Paul, God has made His existence and His divine attributes clearly evident to us, yet in our fallen deprived nature we resist that knowledge and we end up refusing to honor God in our mind.
We all know how it feels to sacrifice something very costly to you for someone, or go extra mile for that person and they show absolutely no regard or appreciation whatsoever for it, display no gratitude, and you realize how offensive that is to you. That is offensive to God too. The scripture tells us that every good and perfect gift which we have ever received in this world, comes to us from God, everything.
We take credit for our personal achievements, without realizing that every skill we have, every talent and ability, were bestowed upon us by our Creator. You insult Him by calling your success either a matter of your own skill or talent, or even worse, a matter of luck.
Every time God is gracious to us, can become an occasion for the increase of our sin, if we refuse to acknowledge when we receive a gift that it comes from God and refuse to express gratitude to God for it.
In light of this passage (Romans 8:28) any bad thing that happens to you in your life is ultimately a good thing, but, there is another side to this, another face on this coin.. If you do not love God, then every good thing, that has ever happened to you is ultimately a bad thing, because it is working now towards your destruction, because, through God’s goodness you have hardened your heart and increased your hostility toward Him, and with every gift that He gives you, your guilt is multiplied, as long as you refuse to be grateful.
So, in simple terms, what this text is teaching us, that for those who love God there is no such thing ‘ultimately’ as a tragedy and for those who despise God, there is no such thing ‘ultimately’ as a blessing.
If you don’t love God, your blessing will be your curse and if you do love Him your curse will be your blessing. There aren’t any other alternatives.
No comments:
Post a Comment