About Me

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Chicago, Illinois, United States
Student Pastor at The Bridge Community Church. www.thebridgedp.org

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

My dad is a pretty strong guy, always has been. When I was a kid I used to argue with my friends all the time about who's dad was stronger. I was always so confident that in a fight my dad would win against anyone. I see this as the idea behind Romans 8:31 which says, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?." "These things" refers the copious amount of pages that Paul (the writer of Romans) had just spent on the theology of salvation, i.e. what God has done to save us. In response to these truths he resounds that we should not fear anyone since God is for us. Literally Paul is presenting a rhetorical question of if God is for us is it even possible that anyone could truly be against us. This is a great verse, but I think that we all face times when we have advisories or conflicts in our lives so how do we apply this to our life?
The biggest way we can actively apply this to our lives is through faith. I believe that the biggest reason that we get caught up in conflicts is that we don't believe that God can and will deliver us from them. Secondly we don't apply biblical principles to the situations. Over and over again in the gospels Jesus shows and explicates a different way of dealing with enemies and conflicts. Instead of being antagonistic we should be loving, caring, and helpful to our enemies. Lastly we don't realize the power of God. It's unbelievable to me that so many Christians still see God as this benevolent yet far-off deity who doesn't intervene in human affairs. The sad tragedy is that most of us live our lives in fear of worldly consequences when we should be concerned with eternal ones.