Devotional
If God Is for Us: Romans 8:31
Some mornings you wake up and it feels like the whole world has picked a side, and it ain’t yours.
The bills are on one side. The worry about your kids is on one side. That thing the doctor said, that thing at work, that thing in your own head at 3 AM that won’t leave you alone: all of it lined up across the field like it’s waiting on you.
I’ve had those mornings out here. Standing at the edge of the day before the day even gets started, doing the math on everything that’s against me, and the math never comes out in my favor.
Paul knew that feeling. And Romans 8:31 is what he said to it:
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?” (LSB)
A verdict, not a pep talk
Notice Paul doesn’t say, “Cheer up, it’s not that bad.” He doesn’t pretend there’s nobody on the other side of the field.
A few verses later he lists the other side by name: tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword. That’s a real list from a man who had lived every word of it. Paul isn’t naive about what’s against us. He’s saying something stronger: none of it gets the final say.
That’s courtroom language, and it’s on purpose. “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” (Romans 8:33-34, LSB)
Sit with that. The Judge is for you. And the one person who could rightfully condemn you is instead sitting at the Father’s right hand praying for you. There’s no higher court to appeal to. The case is closed.
Romans 8 starts with “no condemnation” and ends with nothing in all creation able to separate us from the love of God. This verse is right in the middle of it, holding the whole chapter up.
From victory, not for it
Here’s where we get it twisted, and I include myself in that.
We live like the verdict’s still out. Like God is watching to see how this week goes before He decides whose side He’s on. So we strive and we fret and we white-knuckle our way through the day, trying to earn a ruling that’s already been handed down.
Stop living like the verdict’s still out. It ain’t. Romans 8:31 settles it: you’re fighting from victory, not for it.
That doesn’t mean the fight isn’t real. Wheat doesn’t harvest itself, and trouble doesn’t ask permission. You’ll still have mornings where the other side of the field looks crowded. But there’s a world of difference between a man fighting to be accepted and a man fighting because he already is. One of them is exhausted by noon. The other one can put his head down and work, and sleep at night.
Out here I’ve learned that the path through a field looks long at sunrise. You can’t see the whole way. But you don’t have to. You just have to know whose field it is, and who’s walking it with you.
If God is for us, who can be against us? Plenty of things, some days. They just don’t get to win.
So let me ask you the way I would across the table: what’s lined up on the other side of your field this morning? Name it in the comments. Then read Romans 8 out loud, the whole chapter, and let the verdict be the verdict.
God bless y’all, see you later,
John