Results for "affliction"
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Romans 8:36
36As it is written:“For your sake we face death all day long;we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”Psalm 44:22
36As it is written:“For your sake we face death all day long;we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”Psalm 44:22
The enemies of God cannot assault God Himself, although Satan tempted Jesus and blinded men in order to crucify the Son of God. Rather, the Enemy seeks to grieve God and glorify sin as the human race is led into further and further corruption, lawlessness, and rebellion. In response to this, we have a beautiful and powerful truth that makes demons shudder -- Christ came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). The adversary knows that his time is short (Revelation 12:12) and so we are told that the inhabitants of the earth should mourn. The reason? We will experience Satan's wrath and fury. However meager Satan's power is when compared to the all-saving power of Christ in us, it is still a power that God allows to work in this present age. Satan may kill us, and certainly has targeted every Christian as an object of destruction (1 Peter 5:8). But all we must do is be sober-minded and watchful, as Peter says. Our God is a great shield and His Spirit casts away all darkness. What a victory we have in Jesus our Lord, before whom demons shudder! He will destroy God's enemies with the breath of his mouth (Isaiah 11:4, 2 Thessalonians 2:8), and will bring us finally to Himself forever and ever. Jesus has given us the word: "I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18-19).
Bookmarked 5 months ago.
Romans 8:26
26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
In the midst of trials, sufferings, afflictions, confusion, or spiritual battle, Paul reminds us that we are experiencing something similar to birth pains as we groan for the glory that is wrought within us by the Holy Spirit. We have a great treasure, as it were, in a jar of clay (2 Cor. 4:7). In light of this, we will never know how to pray as we should -- our knowledge is too limited and our faith still only a mustard seed. And in the midst of especially bewildering and hard times, we may not know how to pray at all. Paul offers comfort, then, in that the divine Comforter whom God has given us as a deposit of our future inheritance is actually guarding us in Christ as we pray and present our requests to God (see also Philippians 4:4-7). He presents our deepest needs to the Father with the full knowledge that only God could have, as Paul teaches in the next few verses. The Spirit is indeed praying for us as the guard of our souls and working in us those prayerful groans which are fragrant offerings to God our Father.
Bookmarked 8 months ago.
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