{"id":148,"date":"2020-09-17T18:44:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-17T22:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=148"},"modified":"2020-12-02T18:45:35","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T23:45:35","slug":"god-is-for-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2020\/09\/17\/god-is-for-us\/","title":{"rendered":"God is For Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Viruses can definitely mess up your summer.
 
In the summer of 1981, Chris \u2013 a nine-year-old resident of Grand Saline, Texas \u2013 got the news that he had mononucleosis.  
 
In a heartbeat, all of the outdoor activities that make life worth living for nine-year-boys \u2013 baseball games, fishing trips, bike rides \u2013 were declared off-limits.  Chris would need to lay low.  Indoors.
 
His dad, however, who enjoyed playing the guitar, saw an opportunity.  He brought home a guitar for Chris.  Every morning he showed his son a new chord or technique. 
 
Chris spent the summer mastering those lessons.  By Labor Day he was strumming Willie Nelson songs.  And along the way he made the all-important discovery that he could write songs of his own.
 
That\u2019s how Chris Tomlin \u2013 Christian worship leader, Grammy Award-winner, and the guy TIME<\/em> magazine has declared to be possibly \u201cthe most often sung artist anywhere\u201d \u2013 became a musician. 
 
Tomlin\u2019s 2012 album \u2013 And If Our God is For Us<\/em> \u2013 vaulted him into the national spotlight. 
 
The title track is based on the apostle Paul\u2019s famously effusive words at the end of Romans chapter eight: \u201cIf God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all \u2013 how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?\u201d  After Paul identifies some of things that might possibly separate us from God’s love \u2013 trouble, hardship, suffering, persecution, dark spiritual powers, and death itself \u2013 he asserts, \u201cNo, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.\u201d (8:31-32, 37)
 
Those three English words \u2013 \u201cmore than conquerors\u201d \u2013 translate a single Greek word.  It\u2019s hupernike<\/em>, or hyper-Nike.  \u201cSuper-conquerors\u201d might be a better translation. 
 
The sports brand Nike takes its name from the Greek god of victory.  Nike was the conqueror, the winner.  So the next time someone offers you something with the Nike label you can say, \u201cOh, that\u2019s OK, I have it on good authority that I am hyper-Nike.  I am a super-conqueror.\u201d 
 
That\u2019s because God is for<\/u><\/em> us.  Not because of anything we have done.  But simply because God says that\u2019s who we are in Christ, despite any evidence to the contrary.
 
Check out<\/a> what Chris Tomlin wrote to express those truths \u2013 a song that will no doubt be sung in sanctuaries (as well as in streamed worship services) around the planet this weekend.
 
God used a virus to turn one nine-year-old\u2019s world upside-down.  So he could one day bless the world.
 
Just think how he will use the difficult summer that you and I have been experiencing for his own glory. <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Viruses can definitely mess up your summer. In the summer of 1981, Chris \u2013 a nine-year-old resident of Grand Saline, Texas \u2013 got the news that he had mononucleosis.   In a heartbeat, all of the outdoor activities that make life worth living for nine-year-boys \u2013 baseball games, fishing trips, bike rides \u2013 were declared off-limits.  Chris would need to lay low. … Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}