If God Is For Us
If God is For Us July 11, 2021
“And the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon and said to him, ‘The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.’ Then Gideon said to the angel, ‘O my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.'” (Judges 6:12-13)
It is very special to be a child of God and to be loved by Him as a father loves his own children. However, it is easy to question a father’s love when he is not around when things get really tough. Gideon felt God had abandoned Israel because He did not prevent many bad things from happening to them. He had the belief that if things are going well then God must be with them and when things go wrong then God must have abandoned them. However, it’s not that God had abandoned them but rather they had abandoned Him. Gideon needed to learn that God will never forsake or desert His people unless they do so to Him. Notice what the apostle Paul felt about God being with him in the scripture below:
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? … Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (Romans 8:31-39)
There is not one indication in scripture that Paul ever doubted that God was for him. Even though he underwent extreme persecution, difficulties and imprisonment he knew with confidence that God was on his side and by his side. He believed with all his heart that nothing would ever separate him from the love of Christ and the promises and hope God provided him with. Whether he was going through a good time or a bad one he knew that God was nearby.
It is not a matter of whether God is for us or not but rather are we for Him in every circumstance we find ourselves in?
Brian Thompson