I spent all morning at Emory today going through various tests. I’ve spent a lot of time at the cancer center over the past eleven years. It is always busy and usually I run into someone I know. Today I saw a friend with multiple myeloma who has really had a hard time lately. But she and her husband both smiled warmly and wished me a happy Thanksgiving. They are not letting the disease destroy a joyful attitude.
I believe it is true that some of the greatest thanksgiving takes place in the most difficult circumstances. When a person does not know how many days he has left on this earth, he often appreciates things a little more. Susan reminded me this week that we have so much to be thankful for and I know she is right.
There’s a place at the end of Romans 7 where Paul saw how helpless he was against the sin that works against us. God’s perfect law makes it even more apparent that we cannot be righteous by our own efforts. “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (v 24-25)
What can come against us that God cannot handle? We may be sick, but we are not separated from his love. We may be struggling financially, but we are not separated from the love of Christ. The devil may be attacking us from every side with every weapon, but we are not separated from God’s love.
One of Satan’s most-used strategies is to make us think we ARE separated from the love of God, but he is a liar and a thief. Jesus says, “Fear not, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” I want to be a sheep who even faces death with a smile on his face and thanksgiving on his lips and the truth in his heart that God wins.
“What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He 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? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: ‘For your sake we face death all day long: we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:31-39