Issue 027
Have you had a rough time recently? Too much to do? Projects not working out? Plans going wrong? Maybe you’ve messed up and shortly you’ll be facing the music. It can knock your confidence and wear you down. It can leave you feeling exhausted and unmotivated. On top of this you may feel financial pressures mounting as the economy takes a bit of a downturn.
In the middle of such times you just have ask yourself one question.
Do I love God? If you are a Christian the answer is “Yes”. Even if
you’re disillusioned your answer is still “Yes”. One reason you can be
so sure is that you love because hHe first loved you. His love gives you
the constant power to love back. Now with that settled you need to
remember something else.
In everything that happens to you – and I mean everything, God is
working for your good. Whilst your work may be falling apart he is
still working for your good. While you may be thinking “nothing works”
he is still working for your good. In your mistakes hh works for your
good – even in your sins He works for your good. That’s the deal. He
is not cancelling your contract, it’s binding. It’s bound together with
nails and thorns and a spear. He is not going to pull out now, He
would have pulled out in the wilderness or Gethsemane or Calvary if
he was going to pull out. This bit is not so hard for him.
The Roman letter from which I’m quoting also tells us what this ‘good’
is that God is working out in your life – it is that you might be
conformed to the likeness of His Son. So in everything God works to
make us more like Christ. Everything. Even your messy project,
missed deadline and dysfunctional team.
So unless you have some new information it seems that your stock is
not so worthless after all.
Romans 8: 28-39
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He 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? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died–more than that, who was raised to life–is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Work well
Geoff Shattock
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