Solid Logic

ANDREW WRITES:

The past week has been a tough one both physically and mentally, but by God's grace I'm still here. Now that I can think clearly and my eyes can focus again, I'm going to write a blog about whats been going on spiritually and mentally.

During the past week and a half the nausea and tiredness of the chemotherapy, the soreness of the radiation and pain from the insertion of my Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy (PEG) tube really took a toll on me mentally. I was in despair because this was just the first week of about 8 weeks, and I was already having a hard time! In all of my despair, my wife really just cared for me and helped redirect my thoughts towards the Truth, and that made all the difference.

After listening to one of John Piper's sermons on Romans 8:31-32 I was reminded of God's awesome love for me. Piper simply called this "The Solid Logic of Heaven".

Romans 8:31-32
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

It is an argument from the greater to the lesser. If the greater task is accomplished, then surely the lesser is as well. The greater task was for God to demostrate His love for me by willingly giving His beloved son to be tortured, mocked, spit on, flogged, abandoned, betrayed, and nailed to a cross by the very beings He created so that my sins might be forgiven. The easier task is for Him love me and to do good to me. That is a fulfillment of Ps. 84:11 No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

A few verses later Romans 8:35 says
Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

Even in the midst of my darkest hours I know that the Lord loves me, and that this pain is for good. Nothing is as sweet as the nearness of God in our sufferings.

Here is a quote from John Flavel, a Puritan, from 350 years ago:
"He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all; how shall he not with him freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). How is it imaginable that God should withhold, after this, spirituals or temporals, from his people? How shall he not call them effectually, justify them freely, sanctify them thoroughly, and glorify them eternally? How shall he not clothe them, feed them, protect and deliver them? Surely if he would not spare this own Son one stroke, one tear, one groan, one sigh, one circumstance of misery, it can never be imagined that ever he should, after this, deny or withhold from his people, for whose sakes all this was suffered, any mercies, any comforts, any privilege, spiritual or temporal, which is good for them."

A PEG Tube:

The blue balloon on the right goes into the stomach and holds it in place. A little to the left of the balloon is a stopper that holds the tube in place against the outside of my abdomen, and the valves on the left of the picture are for injecting tube feeding solutions.