Stress Test Devotional May 4
May 04, 2024
ROMANS 8:31-32 | 31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else?
“And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in”
The hymn makes a sudden pivot in the third verse, moving from natural awe and wonder toward the story of Jesus, from Creation and Creator to Salvation and Savior. In nearly identical language Paul also remarks on the shocking answer God enacted for the human predicament — entering history as a servant and sacrifice. In Romans 8 he faces the ambiguity of human experience, articulating the “groaning” of nature itself, as it suffers from decay, dissolution and death. Simone Weil, French theologian and philosopher, also saw nature’s awe inspiring beauty and its cold indifference, and describes it as either a pathway or barrier to faith. God’s willingness to enter and suffer within nature and history is the lynchpin of our confidence that divine love is real, constant, and limitless, even in the face of our tragedies.
Memorize Romans 8:31-32 and read through to the end of the chapter.
Gracious God,
Through faith in Christ I trust that nature will be restored and all that is destructive in it overcome.
Amen.
