What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.
Romans 8:31-34
John Chrysostom was one of the most notable church leaders of late fourth and early fifth centuries. His commitment to the truth and his insistence on reforming the corrupt practices that had crept in led to him being exiled from Constantinople in 398 AD. When he was finally allowed to return he kept preaching with the same fervor and was once again banished. He died on the trip to his new home. Chrysostom wrote, “What can I fear? Will it be death? But you know that Christ is my life, and that I shall gain by death. Will it be exile? But the earth and all its fullness are the Lord’s. Poverty I do not fear; riches I do not sigh for; and from death I do not shrink.”
Saying that Christians have nothing to fear does not mean that Christians do not have problems. All of us face challenges, opposition, and temptation on a daily basis. Many of us face limitations because of injury, sickness, or advancing age. Many of us know what it is like to be attacked, slandered, mistreated, and ostracized. Yet in the face of all of this there is no need to fear because God is for us. God’s love does not extend only to our salvation but to every day of our lives that follows and into eternity. He has already demonstrated that love with the gift of Jesus, and it is a mistake to think that having given so much He would withhold what we need for this day.
