A Month of Sentences (4)

Real Life's Work: Real Return to God—The Divine Declaration of Our Dependence

Nothing and none imbues with awe as does the grace-radiant beckoning of Love. Only helpless can we answer, only subdued can we consent. Impossibility capitulates to infinite holiness. 

Like loyally pokes and prods like—at the nearest, merest occasion, in purest intent—to drag stiff limbs out of Acedia's dreadful cave into Hope's refreshing grove, and on: to live out the Path, and drink in the restoring miles, of Arrival. 

The One Life, Heart and Root launches me out and beckons me on, homeward, in the Way of Return's constant discovery—the everlasting Meaning. Outside the Way, nothing remains. 

Life's shape resolves, with slow-gathering exultation, in successive incursions of Eternity's Lordship. Created in the image of God, we are made to feel, gladly, the gentle tug and pull of His Order, and, gladly, comply.

The paradoxes of divine-human symbiosis: the Lord breaks in by invitation; He rules with no cudgel yet cuts through tough walls of Self's worst bondage with sovereign liberty—the alacrity of ownership—that living temple and dwelling deity might jointly reap Love's selfless triumph. 

Within you is the wherewithal, for Christ is in you; His sense must prevail over the unmoored nonsense of sin-swamped self; thecommonsense of the Kingdom must break out in God-seeded Personhood, exalting the Man Who poured Himself out against sin's tide, and rose Creation's Hero, the crown of Humanity.

When Christ prevails in us, when His Love reigns, then our destiny is His never-ending story, an eternally unfolding facet of the self-originating Glory. Love's nail-pierced hands carve our destiny—out of surrendered spirit, inmost submission, the private communion of sacred encounter.  

The divine declaration of our dependence is the brilliant disclosure of His beneficence; it illuminates the prospect of our emerging liberty as real participants at Love's Council. 

Real return to God: a journey promising comfort and crisis, assurance and perplexity; Living Truth is not approached without the ripping away, bit by bit, of all that will not commit...perfection. 

Real life's real work requires sanctification's toil: Truth's reckoning dispels vaporous persona—the soul is unmasked to the Light; the Divine Work makes a path where there was only pain; the Path is the Rising Divine Life, resurgent and restoring. 

The Path is Being's only Way; the summons thereto, Liberation from every shallow pretext for what is less than Being; Faith takes to the Path in consent to Love, to being in Love, to untrammeled being, fashioned in Love. 

Self subdued to divine rule—this is humility's power; the flowering of peace in Love forever—this is the Crown of Righteousness. 

Subdued to divine rule, self is abandoned to divine desire and raised to divine life. The endless flowering of His life is our eternal authenticity. 

Mere concepts cannot bring you authentic contentment; clever ideation cannot generate a hope greater than you.  Spiritual realization is rooted in, and springs from, the medium of entire obedience to Him Who exceeds you, the medium of disciplined, eager pursuit of His surpassing, all-enfolding beneficence. 

In Christ we're rooted in what's beyond us; the dreadful alternative is to be rooted in what's beneath us. The "Beyond" births life's enlivening vistas, engenders the Meaning incarnate in faithful word and deed. 

When we are willing to see, the Lord will supply the living vision; when we are willing to follow, the Lord will supply the force of spirit; when we are willing to enter, the Lord will usher us into the measureless chamber—but never for the erection of our own monuments.... 

Ineluctably Accountable: because He has revealed, we—willingly, consciously, or not—respond. No exhibition of our gifts (of His own giving) can win life's unwinnable Hope and Fulfillment. There is no faith where there is not the courage of conscious response; no substitution redeems but His; no answer but "the faith of Christ Jesus."

The image of the Creator is the original law of our being—we choose, finally, for or against the Principle of life's beatitude; to choose "for", He urges us: "that they might have life and have it abundantly." 

God the Center, precedes everything, is prior to everything, breaks into everything. The Center will not be marginalized; He demands meeting, and mutuality. Don't put it off. Live it out. Become.  

Nothing is your property in Love; least of all your becoming. Though you answer for it, you cannot control it—it is not a machine; it is unconcealable outcome. The texture of your life subsists in the One you worship.  

We 'find' the Way by no device or acuity of our own. The Son, given from eternity, gives Himself to our helpless poverty. Only He finds, or all is lost.                                                                               
It's because Life is His. The Origin and Conclusion of all things are His, whatever constructions we might prefer to Him. Because Life is His, the soul that would live dare not withdraw from His touch—His indomitable, inscrutable, living touch.  

No matter how stressful and frazzling life is, we're intended and appointed to 'handle it'—by living from the Center, Who is always near. 

His intention is good, its eventuality vouchsafed in His goodness, and its realizations many—in small, daily triumphs of spirit. We never master the Center, but in Him we master all things. 

He is all in all, in life's great and small joy and pain. Because He is, we need... beatifically. He so deigns, orders, blesses. To long for 'more' is to be enemy to your own soul.

Ordained to live in Love's knowledge, vigilantly embrace Heaven's mercy. So mercied, awakened, freed, your soul, Heaven's child, will stream with Heaven's compassion.
                                
Paradoxes: the soul's hopeless dead-end is God's rich entry point, the launching pad for hope-drenched spirit's flight; the soul does not know what streams it craves—it can choose never to know, or yield to Truth's invasion.  

His invasion, our regeneration: the road home springs to view, stretching from the dead-end on—to where we belong, to where we've never been, to where, finally, all our bemercied steps will have led. But no road appears, there at dead-end, when self-esteem shuns the Invader. 

The daunting Newness demands stark, daring choice; the choice manifests destiny that will always have been: will the ruins of Self remain fruitless, or will they rise from the fertile soil of the miraculous Word? 

No corner or moment of our life escapes the single supernal Necessity and its all-subsuming Meaning—such is the adamant gift of Love's Self-Trueness. We can't make out the far shores, but Love bids us unfurl our sails to His Spirit driving us relentlessly there.  

Grace, Faith and Resurrection

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you are saved through faith,  and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 2:9 it is not from works, so that no one can boast. (NIV Bible, here and following)

The immediate context of this very famous verse is, of course, chapter two, the first ten verses or so, but the larger context naturally includes all of chapter one, where Paul develops the thoughts that lead him to this favorite "memory verse." Let's consider that flow of thought.

In chapter one Paul exalts Christ, and exalts God in Christ. In 1:3, the apostle writes, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Praise be to Him...why? The apostle proceeds to explain why; it's because:

He has blessed us
He has chosen us
He has adopted and predestined us
He has redeemed and forgiven us
He has poured out wisdom and understanding
He has revealed His holy will

Then, in 1:15-23, Paul utters a prayer for the Ephesians. It begins with thanksgiving for them....

(By the way, are we grateful for each person we pray for? Sometimes it is easier to say "I love that brother in the Lord" than it is to say "I am grateful for that brother in the Lord!")

Paul is grateful for the Ephesians. Paul's life is fuller and richer and more wonderful, because the Ephesian believers exist. That's the spiritual attitude in which Paul begins to pray for them.

And what does Paul request of God for the Ephesians? He requests deeper, greater, fuller knowledge of God. It is like Paul asks God:

"Please give them more of Yourself! Give them more of your Spirit, give them more of everything that Your Spirit brings. More of Your presence, of Your power--that power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. So that my dear, beloved Ephesians might truly live on the plane of resurrection, live in the wholeness of redeemed humanity, live higher than the corruptions and ruin of sin!"

It is Jesus Who materialized this new life, the life Paul is asking God to immerse the Ephesian believers in. Jesus materialized it at the price of His life, and He materialized it by rising from the dead. The Lord paid the supreme price to make all this real and ours. And He Himself, Jesus, is the embodiment and possessor of this new life, so that all who receive the life are forever connected to Him, like branches attached to a vine.

And that is the essence of the prayer of Paul for the Ephesians in verses 15-23, which concludes chapter 1.

And only then, in light of everything already said, Paul turns to the Ephesians directly, saying, "And as for you...." 

"Who, me?"

"Yes, you."

How should you (Ephesians, and you, believer, today) perceive and understand yourselves in the light of this reality? This is what Paul is gearing up to tell the Ephesians now, in chapter two.

How should you "take" yourself, see yourself, appreciate yourself...? You know, contemporary society is quite obsessed with this whole idea--yes, really infatuated with the concept of "self-esteem", "self-image", "self-worth." These days, it's almost a crime to say anything that could possibly wound somebody's "self-esteem." So, if anybody asks you whether you like their hat, you'd better say yes! Or if somebody invites you to come watch compete on an  obstacle course, and they fall down on practically every obstacle, you'd better tell them afterwards that... "you know, you fell down better than I've ever seen anybody fall down in my life!"

Paul says, "As for you...." Now he's going to tell the Ephesians who exactly they are, and how they should value themselves, what their self-image must be--in the light of the incomparable manifestation of God's love in Christ.

He says, first of all, "You were dead." That is, there was nothing in you that could possibly have improved your hopeless condition. The book was closed, the ship had sailed, the train had pulled out. Barring an utterly inconceivable intervention by an inconceivable power, you were doomed. That's what it means to be dead in sin. No matter how resourceful you are, you could never find a way to save yourself. Even if you wanted to. But you didn't even want to. Your heart was not even alive to the problem--that's how dead you were in sin.

2:1 And although you were dead in your transgressions and sins,  2:2 in which you formerly lived according to this world’s present path,  according to the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the ruler of the spirit that is now energizing the sons of disobedience,  2:3 among whom all of us  also  formerly lived out our lives in the cravings of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest… 

If you go to a psychologist or counselor or "life-coach" todya, probably none of them will kick off the first session by informing you that you're "dead in sin." That is not the modern, progressive, enlightened approach to building up your self-esteem.

But if a man has cancer, the doctor doesn't do him any good by saying, "You're just perfect, don't worry."

Everybody understands that, when it comes to physical health--if something is wrong, we want to know about it, so we can get treatment, and maybe be cured.

God's love is too great for Him to leave us in ignorance about the disease of our sin. Since God is determined to cure our disease, He must confront us with the diagnosis of its full, terribly reality.

Verse 4 begins with the word "But." There's the turning point, there's the GOOD NEWS that follows the bad news. You were dead in sin, BUT...!  That one word changes everything, because God has changed everything.

2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, 2:5 even though we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you are saved!  –2:6 and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 2:7 to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

And now we should be able to understand and appreciate verses 8 and 9 better, in light of what Paul has written leading up to this moment.

2:8 For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 2:9 it is not from works, so that no one can boast.

Notice that Paul is repeating himself! He has already said this in verse 5: by grace you are saved! If you want to know what this phrase means in verse 8, you have to go back and see what it means in verse 5, where Paul was saying: because you were dead in sin, because you had no power to save yourselves, or even the desire to save yourselves and live in fellowship with the holy God, because of all that, everything depended on the sovereign love of God.

That is His grace. Grace is the perfect, sovereign love of God. That love does not ask our permission in order to act in perfect agreement with its own nature. Grace is God's self-generating, self-motivating love. Grace is an attitude, but more than an attitude.

Yes, indeed, grace is more than an attitude, but remember too that it is not less than an attitude. As soon as we reduce grace to something less than the very inclination and disposition of the divine heart toward His creations, as soon as we begin to imagine it as a "thing" that God somehow "gives" us, a thing that isn't part of His own being, that is when we begin misunderstanding God's grace disastrously. When we conceive of "grace" as a theological sort of "item," we divorce grace from the Gracious One.

First of all, grace is God's overflowing, irrepressible, motivating love. God saved us, because love could do nothing else: "God is love."

This is the grace Paul is pointing to in verse 8. Thanks to the sovereign love of God, it became possible for you to be saved.

God's grace did everything necessary for us to be saved. Except for the one thing that only we can do: respond. Answer His grace with surrender and submission. Believe.  

Over and over again Holy Scripture pleads with us: Believe.

From the very start of His earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus preached and summoned the masses to "Repent and..." what? "Believe the good news!"

The resurrected Christ rebuked His disciples: "How slow you are to believe all that the prophets have spoken!"

And in the Gospel of John, which we might call the Gospel of Faith, the Lord Himself presses on His hearers, again and again, the crucial, central place of faith:

John 6:29 Jesus replied, “This is the deed God requires – to believe in the one whom he sent.”

14:11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, but if you do not believe me, believe because of the miraculous deeds themselves. 

20:24 Now Thomas (called Didymus),  one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. 20:25 The other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he replied, “Unless I see the wounds  from the nails in his hands, and put my finger into the wounds from the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe it!” 

20:26 Eight days later the disciples were again together in the house,  and Thomas was with them.  Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  

20:27  Then he said to Thomas,  “Put  your finger here, and examine  my hands. Extend your hand and put it into my  side.  Do not  continue in your unbelief, but believe.”  20:28  Thomas replied to him, “My Lord and my God!” 20:29  Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are the people who have not seen and yet have believed.” 

"Blessed are they who believe?" Why? Because thanks to the grace of God, thanks to his condescension, thanks to His driving, fierce love... He doesn't require more than that from us for salvation.

Another way of putting what Paul is saying here in Eph. 2:8 is: "Because of God's merciful condescension, all you have to do is believe."

And you couldn't even do that, if God didn't enable you to do it. In fact, we can't do anything at all, except thank to God the Creator Who gives us all our capacities and potential.

Faith--it seems such a small, vague, intangible thing. You can't hold it in your hand. You can't weight it or say what color or shape it is. Yet God Himself has appointed faith--our faith!--to a vital role in the drama of redemption.

To Jesus it wasn't enough to tell Martha, the sister of Lazarus, "I am the resurrection and the life." It wasn't enough even for the Lord to tell her, "Whoever believes in Me will live, even if he dies. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die." It was vitally important to Jesus to put Martha on the spot and ask her point-blank, "Do you believe this?"

Who asked Martha that question? I'll tell you: it was God's Grace that asked Martha that question.

Who told Jairus, "Do not fear; just believe"? God's Grace in the flesh told Jairus to believe.

Who told Thomas, "Blessed are they who have not seen, but believe"? It was God's sovereign Love, embodied in Jesus Christ, and risen from the dead, Who said this to Thomas.

Yes, faith seems like such a vague, intangible, even weak thing.

But it's much more than that.

Faith is our total surrender to God. Faith is all we can do in answer to God's perfect redemption. Faith is our answer. It is our open door in response to God's open door.

Faith doesn't make us great; God makes our faith great. He elevates our faith up to the plane of grace, where the resurrected life of His Blessed Son becomes our risen life. 

One day the angel Gabriel appeared to the young girl Mary and said, "You will be with child, and give birth to a son, and you will give him the name Jesus. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will have no end. The holy one to be born will be called the Son of God."

Mary replied, "I am the Lord's maidservant. May it be to me as you have said."

"May it be to me as you have said." That is faith, the open door to God's open door.

The result was, Mary's whole body and soul became the instrument of God's unfathomable design, the channel of His conquering grace. That is the outcome when grace meets faith. Which is why, if you memorize only Ephesians 2:8-9, you have, in a real way, missed the point. The full point, and the story of what God did in Mary's life, and desires to do in ours, demands that we include verse 10. And I will close by reading, one more time, Ephesians 2:8-10:

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you are saved through faith,  and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 2:9 it is not from works, so that no one can boast. 2:10 For we are his workmanship, having been created in Christ Jesus for good works that God prepared beforehand so we may do them.

What Is The Spirit Saying To The Church?

What is the Spirit saying to the Church?

I'd be a fool to pretend to answer that question. 

But on the level of supposition, I imagine it must be...

(To risk being absurdly obvious)

Many different things. 

Christians in Pittsburgh are, after all, contending with a very different raft of challenges, needs, "pressing issues," immediate crises, possibilities and responsibilities (social, cultural, national) than the Christians in...say... Bangkok. 

Or the Christians in Moscow as opposed to Nairobi, or the Christians in Mongolia as opposed to Malta. Or the Christians in Kiev as opposed to Rio de Janeiro. 

Is there one Spirit? 

Of course. 

Is the Church one? 

Of course. 

Is there a common, uniting vision and call? 

Absolutely. 

But it's wrong to conclude, on that basis, that Almighty God Himself expects every Christian in the world to..."buzz" with the issues that I, in my little house in my little neighborhood in my little city in my little country, happen to be all wrapped up in at the moment. 

It doesn't at all mean the issues are insignificant. It just means they're not...everything. 

To be quite clear, they may be issues of eternal import, the most important things I, right here and right now, can attend to.

Still, they are not...everything. 

Only God is everything. 

What is the Spirit saying to the Church?

Whatever it is, it must be something intrinsically bigger than the stuff of today's newspaper headlines. 

Or even what "charges me up" spiritually. 

We have no other option, of course, than to hear the Spirit "locally" and respond within the sphere of our assigned place in His vineyard. Hopefully, to respond with alacrity! 

Moreover, we can "cover" the whole vineyard with prayer, and we can occasionally lend a direct, practical hand to our brethren laboring in other parts. 

But it would be a mistake to assume that every laborer all over the vineyard is turning over soil that looks just like what's in our shovel, or encountering precisely the same roots, rocks and weeds. Or even using exactly the same tools. Or even, to stretch the analogy uncomfortably, planting the same seeds (though the Gospel is one)—or, if the seeds are the same, the Master may have provided different instructions for a very different kind of soil. 

Indeed, the vineyard is so large, our brother or sister is likely to be contending with a whole different weather system, too....

There may even be parts of the field that gladly cooperate with a John Deere while others respond to nothing but a horse and plough. 

What is the Spirit saying to the Church?

It must be so many different things, and all of them bearing an eternal weight of meaning. 

And in it all, it is God Who is....everything. And Who alone contemplates everything. 

The Lord's Table and our Future

1 Corinthians 11:23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread, 11:24 and after he had given thanks he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 11:25 In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, every time you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 11:26 For every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (NET Bible)

"...Until He comes."

When God's people observe communion, they bear witness both of what took place in the Lord's death, and what must yet take place. Simultaneously, we look back at the ultimate, supreme feat of redemption, on the Cross, where our sins were taken away, removed from us by the Holy Lamb of God, and we look forward in expectation of that day when Jesus Christ will appear before all creation, the Victorious King of kings. 

For two thousand years Christ's Church in this world has not failed, in this way, in submission to the risen Christ, to bear witness to Who He is, who we are in Him, what we hold fast to, and where are pressing on to. Let us never underestimate the significance of this table, this bread, this wine, and our testimony and expectation of the coming King. The commandment pronounced by Jesus Himself ceaselessly summons us back, to recall, recollect, take thought, focus, to again be resolved and dedicate ourselves to the One Savior of human souls, and to recognize anew Who we belong to. The Lord knew that His people--that is, we the Church--would need such a physical, visible, repeatable, uniting and reminding observance as this. Yes, we are saved by God's grace through faith, but faith needs reinforcement, support, concrete footholds. Communion is one of those footholds. And everything that communion testifies to is, for us, life's sense, meaning and hope. 

This Lord's table, and everything it bears witness to, limits our lives. Testifying that we belong to Him means we don't belong to any other. Testifying that we serve Him means we serve no other. And testifying that we are awaiting Him means we expect no other, and that we will respond to no other and recognize no other but Him alone, the only Risen Son at His glorious appearing. 

Our fate is limited by God's grace. Our future is demarcated by the future of Jesus Himself, inasmuch as He chose to identify with us. Our eternity is defined by the eternity of God's Lamb. That's what it means to belong to Him. 

Let's look at a place in sacred scripture where the apostle Paul directs our attention in a special way to our "limited", demarcated, delineated eternity in Christ. 

Romans 8:18 For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us. 8:19 For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. 8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God  who subjected it – in hope 8:21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondageof decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. 

It's our future that the apostle is talking about here. When we testify of our great expectation in Christ, we also testify of the surpassing expectation of the whole creation, as yet subjected to the consequences of human sin. And we, together with all creation, suffer to this day--but what do we need? Immediate release from all suffering? That will come, but in the meantime our actual need is for holy assurance concerning God's blessed intention towards us. Again: 

Romans 8:18 For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us. 8:19 For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. 

We are pressing on to a revelation, and the most astonishing thing is, it is the revelation of us ourselves, together with Christ in glory. 

Do I look at myself in the mirror and see a splendid revelation that will one day gladden and revive the whole, exhausted, worn-out creation? No, not very much. And precisely so I take by faith what is written here and I again commit myself to this gloriously limited, narrow way, because it is that pearl of great price for which all else is worth giving up. We suffer in life but, before us, and towards us, shines a light--a focused, concentrated, limited, single beam of light, the light of revelation and hope, the light that conceals the dawning freedom of the whole creation together with the children of God at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

8:18 For I consider that our present sufferings cannot even be compared to the glory that will be revealed to us. 8:19 For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. 8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God  who subjected it – in hope 8:21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. 

When you take part in the Lord's Supper, reflect on the future of which this ordinance of the Lord serves as a foreshadowing: when God's children will gather around the heavenly table together with Christ Himself and all the redeemed Creation will exult for glory. And perhaps you will feel something of what the apostle is anticipating when he says further:

8:23 Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies.  8:24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? 8:25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance.

Not only the creation groans, but our souls, too, groan for home. We yearn to meet the Lord, which testifies that His Spirit dwells in us. Paradoxically, that pain, the pain of longing for our heavenly home, is an inestimable blessing, because it reminds us Who we belong to, and by Whom we've been called, and Who is acting through our lives for His eternal glory.

Sometimes people joke, "I'm sick today, but that's okay: being sick proves I'm alive!" In a rather similar way the ache in our spirits, for return, for reunion with the Lord, assures us that the love of the Father dwells in our hearts and steers us.

8:24 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he sees? 8:25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with endurance.

It may seem that, in verse 24, Paul is explaining the perfectly obvious. He tells us that as long as we can't see the thing we're hoping for, we go on hoping, but as soon as it turns up, we stop hoping for it. Well, isn't that something we all knew already? Of course we knew, and it's precisely because we know it that the apostle takes advantage of the fact to remind us that that's exactly how it is concerning what "eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and it has not entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for..." who? 

Yes, "for those who love Him." The apostle reminds so that we would wait with patience, and that our love for Christ would only grow right up to that great Day, and, yes, on into all eternity.

And, I think, in light of everything already said, we will understand even more deeply the gist of the following verses. Keep in mind that here Paul's attention is entirely centered on the trustworthiness of God's intention for His beloved children, in Jesus, Who identified with them and, through His death and Resurrection, bestowed His own eternal destiny on them. In the light of such exceeding grace, what, after all, can really constitute an authentic threat to us?

That is what all this has been leading us up to.

But just before we get there, the apostle will remind us that the presence of God's Spirit serves not only as a harbinger of the great Day, but also enables our daily walk in the Lord:

8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray,  but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. 8:27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes on behalf of the saints according to God’s will.

Because Christ Jesus, in the magnificence of His love and mercy, chose to identify with us in our sins and helplessness, taking on Himself the whole weight and burden of our guilt before the Father, and suffering the full, righteous, punishment of those sins, He correspondingly bestowed on us the right to identify with Him in prayer, the right to pray with with His desires, His feelings, by His Spirit, so we might participate in the very thoughts of the most high God. Sometimes we don't quite understand why certain urges to pray arise within us or what it is inside that so strives toward God or for what exactly, but we know that God is in it. Later, it happens, it is granted to us to see, to understand, what it was that God's Spirit in us was praying, and then we praise God for granting us the honor to take part in God's work, by sharing God's thoughts.

That is the depth of what it means to co-heirs with Christ. That is God's will for us in Him. And as the apostle writes further:

8:28 And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose....

Again the apostle reminds us that we love Him. This is our answer, our faith-response, to Christ's call. Why do "all things work together for good"? Not because we can't, in this world, run into trouble, hardship and pain. But since God has demarcated, narrowed, limited our destiny by the very destiny of His Own Beloved Son, then everything, when all is said and done, works together for our good. It can't be any other way!

Never forget that the very one who wrote these words, Paul, had finally to give up his life to execution for the sake of Jesus. And he did it exulting in spirit. So, this is no naive man writing that "all things work together for the good." NO. This is a man with the eternal heavenly vision in his eyes, who assesses everything in this life in the light of what our Redeemer has prepared for us:

14:1 “Do not let your hearts be distressed. You believe in God; believe also in me. 14:2 There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. Otherwise, I would have told you, because I am going away to make ready a place for you. 14:3 And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me,  so that where I am you may be too. 14:4 And you know the way where I am going.” 14:5 Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 14:6 Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 14:7 If you have known me, you will know my Father too. And from now on you do know him and have seen him.”

If you are really listening, not only with your ears but your hearts, you must catch the fact that here Jesus Himself is talking about the very same truth as Paul is. It's all one and the same vision of the divine, eternal, intention towards us, and what it means to live out our earthly lives in utter expectation of the vision's materialization in reality.

And in the light of all this, I very much hope that what Paul means in the next verses will become even more--brilliantly!--clear:

8:28 And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose, 8:29 because those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 8:30 And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.

The all-knowing God certainly foreknew us, who would respond to the Word of Life, and it us indeed that He foreordained to be conformed to the image of Jesus Himself.

This phrase sounds quite interesting in the Greek original. The verb "predestined" in Greek comes from the same root we get the word "horizon" from. The idea here is that the Father Himself sees for us only that blessed eternity He foresees for His own beloved Son, the risen Lamb, Jesus.

What's also interesting is that in the Greek original there is no verb here, "to be", where our Bible says "to be conformed". The nuance of the phrase that Paul composes here could be expressed roughly as: "Those who God foreknew in Christ, those very ones He demarcated in advance as identical to the image of Christ Himself, precisely so Christ Himself would be the firstborn among the multitude of God's children." 

That's why all things "work together for the good," finally. It simply cannot be any other way for those who remain faithful, who keep on loving Him. What Paul is doing here is encouraging us, urging us on, not to lose heart but to hold onto this unwavering vision.

"And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me,  so that where I am you may be too."

"And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified."

God's activity in us is perfect. He leaves nothing undone. 

As a conclusion, I will allow the apostle Paul to have his say, without further commentary from me. I hope that, in the light of what you've just heard, you will hear these words in a new way, with deeper meaning! 

Romans 8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 8:32 Indeed, he who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things? 8:33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect?It is God who justifies. 8:34 Who is the one who will condemn? Christ is the one who died (and more than that, he was raised), who is at the right hand of God, and who also is interceding for us. 8:35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? 

Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 8:36 As it is written, “For your sake we encounter death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 8:37 No, in all these things we have complete victory through him who loved us! 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1 Corinthians 11:26 For every time you eatthis bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.