God's Awesome Power

One of the first times I ever actually read and understood Romans 8:28, was when I heard a powerful message from Buddy Ferris several years back. Buddy was an ex-cop who was injured while on duty, and his story of life and recovery is just as powerful everytime I listen to the tape. He tells of his near death experience and how he was reading Romans 8:28 right before his life was almost taken. He picks up his story while in the hospital; he asks his wife to read something from the Bible to him, she carelessly opens the book and falls to the same powerful verse where he left off.

For those of you who are not familiar with this verse, it reads:
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to his purpose."

I have heard this verse told in story after story, each proclaiming God's grace and mercy to those who truly DO love the Lord.

In today's sermon the verse was mentioned yet again. This story tells of a man who was doing missionary work in a non-Christian nation. The man was in prison for his belief in God and his devotion through prayer. Finally after months of mental and physical torture the man renounced God's name, hoping to find some peace from those who imprisoned him. Two days after turning his back on God, his captures changed his job so that he would be responsible of cleaning the latrines (toliets). He spoke of how awful the job was for the man, but on that first day he saw a soiled paper with English writing on it. He carefully washed off the paper and stuck it into his pocket before anyone else could see. Later that evening, he pulled out the paper and found it to be Romans 8. Boy is God powerful. The story goes on to say that this man insisted on cleaning the toliets so he could read more of God's word which was being used as toliet paper in jail.

This was just another story about how God does bring ALL things together for good, for those who love and follow him.

God Bless :)