Most Encouraging

One of the most encouraging places in scripture is this area in the book of Romans 8:

Romans 8:28And 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?

There is so much jam packed into so little space that many times we can read over what is said here with little to no understanding of what is really being said. It places like this in the bible that let you know you really ARE reading the words of God, not words of men. Consider this wording: in ALL things God works for the good of those who love him.....all things? Yea....ALL THINGS. All leaves nothing out does it? Its expansive all inclusive wording that only someone like GOD can backup.

There's much more to say about this area of the bible but I want you to focus right now on this "foreknew.. predestined" stuff. What is all that saying? It's saying that in the same moment that everything was created the Lord knew the end from the beginning of everything so he also knew who would be saved and who would not. He knew...way back when who would be saved and who would not so according to that knowledge he did everything else like predestine, call justify and GLORIFY us.

This "glorify" thing is much much bigger than most of us realize. To get a mental grasp of what we are talking about here about us being glorified, the Lord has brought this to my attention many times:

The devil is the "god of this world" right?

2 Corinthians 4:4 The god of this age has blinded the minds of ...
... in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving sothat they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is ...

Do you think that those who belong to the Lord, even the least of his servants will have less than the devil does now? What do I mean? The devil is the god of this world, so do you think that anyone will be in heaven someday and look back and say "hey, Satan got to be the "god" of an entire world and all I get is a city?" We don't know exactly what it is the Lord has in store for us because our minds aren't that big, but we know its going to be very very VERY good.

1 Corinthians 2:9 However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ...
... But as it is written, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined the things that God has prepared for those who love him." ...

Your mind can't even IMAGINE how great the things are that our Lord has in store for us...

Satan gets to be the "god" of this world. That's easy to wrap your mind around isn't it? The things the Lord has in store for us you CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE and I can imagine some pretty big things....stew on that for awhile....

The Lord is going to glorify us in ways we cannot imagine right now. If we could wrap our mind around even a small piece of how very great our God is and how much he loves us we might explode with the joy of it.

The things we are doing are not done in vain. We have no idea just how great what is coming is going to be. Paul understood this when he said:

Romans 8:18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Be encouraged today..be very encouraged that our present sufferings are quickly passing away and what awaits us "in Christ" is indescribably (is that a word? LOL) good. We have to wait for heaven for some, but not all of the the good things that are ours "in Christ." Why? Because the kingdom of heaven is WITHIN US.

Luke 17:20Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”

We have much to learn about how great a calling we have "in Christ." What we are called to is so great our minds cannot comprehend it not can we even imagine it. There is a reward for loving and obeying our God. There is a reward for rejecting evil and choosing what pleases our God. Some rewards can be seen on earth but there is so very very much more in store for us.

I asked the Lord for something to give you today and this is what he gave me to write. May the grace and peace of our Lord be with you today. Keep the faith, pray for the brothers.