And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
Romans 8:28 NKJV
This is one scripture we often quote when things don’t go the way we plan, envisage or expect. We have often quoted this scripture to pacify our conscience about outcomes that didn’t favor us and for which we did not work toward. We have used it to encourage ourselves when we experience mediocre results based on our mediocre inputs. We have used it to justify our poor outcomes for lack of diligence, often stifling the voice of the Holy Spirit’s correction in order to make ourselves feel good.
We often quote the scripture out of context “All things work together for good.” Now the scripture never just said all things work together for good. However, it says all things work together for good to those who love god and to those who are the called according to his purpose. We can see here that all things is guaranteed to work for the good of two categories of people. All things are assured and declared to work for the good of those who fulfil these criteria “those who love God, those who are called according to His purpose.” All things do not work for the good of just anybody. It is for those who love Him. If you love Him, all things are guaranteed to work ultimately in your favor, and those who love Him are those who keep His Word.
We can see a great example of this scripture in the life of Joseph. He loved God enough to keep His Word and honor Him when no one was looking and when it was more convenient to sin. Listen to what he said when Potiphar’s wife kept mounting pressure on him to sleep with her – “There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:9 NKJV).He said “if I do this I will sin against God.” So we can see it was his love for God that kept him from sinning. Though he paid dearly for it, God ultimately caused it to work together for his good.
It’s easy to admire Joseph’s devotion to God and aspire to it but it isn’t exactly the easiest thing to do. Joseph went through quite the ordeal and you will too. How much of an ordeal you may wonder? We’ll explore this in tomorrow’s devotional.
To be continued…