Morning By Morning #149

Those he justified, he also glorified.

Romans 8:30

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

This verse is a precious truth for you, dear believer. You may be poor, enduring suffering, or be relatively unknown, but be encouraged. Simply consider your calling and the benefits that flow from it, especially the one mentioned in this passage. As surely as you are a child of God today, then just as surely your trials will soon come to an end, and you will be rich in every way with great joy and happiness. Wait a little while and your weary head will be adorned with the crown of glory and your now laboring hands will grasp the palm branch of victory.

Do not lament your troubles, but rejoice that soon you will be where “there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain” (Rev. 21:4). The “chariots of fire” (2 Kings 6:17) will soon be at your door and in a moment you will be transported to the place of the glorified. The eternal song is nearly on your lips and the gates of heaven stand open for you. Never doubt you will fail to enter this place of rest, for if the Lord has called you, nothing “will be able to separate [you] from the love of God” (Rom. 8:39). Suffering cannot break the bond, the fires of persecution cannot burn the cord, nor can the hammer of hell break the chain.

You are secure, for the Voice who called you at first will call you once again—from earth to heaven and from death’s dark gloom to immortality’s unspeakable splendor. Rest assured that the heart of Him who justified you beats with infinite love toward you. You will soon be with the glorified where your inheritance awaits you. You wait here only to be made ready for that inheritance, and once that is done, the wings of angels will lift you far away to the mountain of peace, joy, and blessedness, where:

Far from a world of grief and sin,

With God eternally shut in,

Charles Wesley, 1707 – 1788

you will rest for ever and ever.

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

What our Lord starts He finishes. After all, He is “the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Rev. 22:13), and is “the author and perfecter [or completer] of our faith” (Heb. 12:2). Therefore, each and every believer can be “confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).

Our verse today in its context says, “Those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Rom. 8:29-30).

Consider the progression from foreknowledge, to predestination, to calling, to justification, and finally to glorification. As believers, we are saints in process—the process of sanctification. He is conforming us “to the likeness of his Son,” and He will not stop until we reflect Him perfectly—until we are indeed glorified!

Thank You, Father, that “we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).