#377 - The Bible: Romans 8:31

We reflect on how Romans 8:31 reframes confidence, calling, and effort, and why repeated moments of alignment feel less like coincidence and more like direction. We talk gifts, resistance, and the daily choices that turn faith into focused action.

• church moments that feel personal and timely
• Romans 8:31 as a lens for courage
• divine support versus coincidence
• gifts as entrusted work to steward
• resistance and procrastination as subtle sabotage
• discipline, health, and habits that protect calling
• choosing wholehearted effort and follow-through
• closing reflections and a look ahead to more verses

“Check me out. Peace.”

Chapters

• 0:00 When Sermons Get Personal
• 1:40 Coincidence Or Calling
• 2:36 Romans 8:31 Introduced
• 3:52 What “God For Us” Implies
• 6:10 Gifts, Confidence, And Calling
• 7:50 The War Of Art And Resistance
• 8:50 Divine Support As Tailwind

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

You know, my uh my podcast is not biblical at all. However, uh, I am a Christian and I go to church, and I've always mentioned to believers and non-believers alike that it's the strangest thing when you go to church because it's almost as though a close personal friend emailed the pastor, and when you go, the pastor is speaking about a very specific, not broad, very specific thing in your life. Um, and it just kind of blows me away. Um, because I don't believe in coincidences. Now, statistically, coincidences do exist. Some things randomly happen uh and they combine together. I get that. That's what a coincidence is. However, um, it's not supposed to happen consistently, then it wouldn't be a coincidence, right? So at a certain point, I feel like you have to believe in God just based off the fact that you have so many things that are lined up um consistently, um, that there has to be a force behind it. Um, that being mentioned, try not to digress too much. Um, I I've recently have had these, excuse me, I've recently had these uh Bible verses one week after another, that to me, I just felt like it was such a game changer. Um, as far as a you know, Jesus always did a lot of drop the mic kind of stuff. He would say something to the smartest of crowds or the brightest of intellects. Um, and it was just stunning. People just think about it. Like you ever heard of a song, uh, like a lyric in a song? And it was so impressive. You just kept thinking about that one sentence, that one part of that song the entire day. Pretty much all of what Jesus said was a lot of drop the mic stuff, right? Like ending discussion, just there's no way to debate it. Like, wow, that's some crazy stuff, right? Um, so for the next at least two weeks, I'm gonna be doing um Bible verses that I think uh were just so crazy. Uh, and now I'm making them a part of my my day every day. So the first one is Romans 8, 31. And that is what then shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? That's pretty crazy. That's a short way of saying it. If God's on our side, who can be against us? We're unstoppable. All right, as long as your purpose is truthful and just, okay, uh, and you're in the right, you can't be wrong. What other support that's bigger than God could you possibly have? More than any military, any police force, any friends, any other supporters. If you're doing something and you think you're in the right, if you really are in the right, truthfully, honestly, okay, God won't just protect you, but he'll also make you win. He will He will force that to happen. Okay, He is supporting you. All right. It's kind of like um uh in sailing. You want the wind behind you to help you go forward. Well, that's a lot of wind. That's God, right? That's as big as it can get. Um now I actually uh wanted to get some further, and that's what one of the services was about, and um, it just meant so much to me. Uh, and I just wanted to share it, right? Uh now I looked up on Google just to try to get some more technical um aspects of it, right? And one of them is said this, which I thought was pretty interesting. It said, divine affirmation. The verse emphasizes that God is for us, providing a powerful foundation of support and protection for believers. Again, that's just what I just said. Um, but the second part, which is who can be against us? That means that no force, as it says here in this little uh detailed translation, no force, neither present nor future threats, nor any power in the universe can ultimately separate believers from God's love. And not just that, his power, his uh divine uh strength and everything. If you can just remember one thing, okay, when you're making your decisions, um if you have a gift, a gift meaning, you know, as I always say, uh, from God, it could be singing, it could be throwing a baseball, you know, you want to do it to the best of your ability. Well, do it to the best of God's ability, meaning, meaning, all right, without hesitation, uh, with full confidence. Because if God gave you something, he wants you to be the best at it, right? As I believe uh uh in comedy, right? So again, it goes back to a prior book that I mentioned, something called the war of art and uh resistance and procrastination, all these things that go against that true gift, uh that uh, as I always say again, God gave me, you, us, every every individual, I believe at least, uh then you're not it's basically like um it's a very slow form of I don't want to say evil because that's a harsh word, but essentially because if you procrastinate a little or if you procrastinate a lot, there's only one force that would want you to delay or progress less in something that God has given you to make your life, your surroundings, everything a better place. Right? And that's what the war of art has to do with. It has to do with essentially um uh procrastination and resistance and finding excuses for not moving forward. And he calls he calls that the uh author calls that um essentially a a part of evil, right? And I know I'm getting a little deep now, but you have to make a simple connection that if there's two sides, one is good, one is bad, and if God gives you a gift, okay, anything that goes against that having to do with um let's just say the gift of, let's just say your life, for example. He doesn't want you uh uh using your body and your words to deceive people and to lie and to to be bad, right? In the exact way, if he gave you a gift, a foundation, something to make uh your life better and those around you better, it could be your athleticism to support your wife and family or whatever it is, right? Um, he wouldn't want you to uh pollute your body, okay, because that would put um it would kind of like jeopardize hypothetically, potentially, that great job that you have being that professional baseball player, fill in the blank or whatever it is. So essentially, between good and bad, um, when you're doing something coming full swing to this Bible verse, Romans 8 31, if you do things and you do them to completion, if you do them with full uh wholeness inside you, right? Nobody can beat you. You will be unstoppable. So if you do something, do it 100%. Do it more than 100%, do it a thousand percent, right? You think how much better God is than you, imag like multiply that right by infinity. And uh that's that's Romans 8.31. So appreciate you listening to me and my rants, my non-expertise as a non-biblical scholar, but when I heard this verse, it just meant so much to me. And um the following week I heard something else, which which was really a game changer for me again, and a couple weeks after that. And I'm sure there's others, but uh right now I have a total of four that really mean a lot to me. And it's been the last four weeks in a row going to church, and it just hit so close to home, it was a home run. Like it was just phenomenal. So think about that, check it out, and um, you have a beautiful day. I'm Ben Joel Dunn. Check me out. Peace.