{"id":91532,"date":"2025-10-24T11:03:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T16:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=91532"},"modified":"2025-10-24T11:03:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T16:03:12","slug":"but-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/but-god\/","title":{"rendered":"But God . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<p>by David Gibson<\/p>\n<p>When troubles mount, as they often do, we need the assurance these passages offer us:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;<em>And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; <strong>but God<\/strong>\u00a0was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions<\/em> . . .&#8221; (Acts 7:9-10).<\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. <strong>But God<\/strong>\u00a0raised him from the dead<\/em> . . .&#8221; (Acts 13:29-30).<\/li>\n<li>&#8221; . . . <em>we all once lived in the passions of our flesh<\/em>\u00a0. . . <strong><em>But God<\/em><\/strong><em>, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ<\/em> . . .&#8221; (Ephesians 2:3-5).<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;<em>At my first defense<\/em>,&#8221; Paul wrote, &#8220;<em>no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me<\/em> . . . <em><strong>but the Lord<\/strong> stood by me and strengthened me<\/em> . . .&#8221; (II Timothy 4:16-17).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>God is the great reverser of bad situations. Joseph was cruelly treated, but God was with him. Jesus was dead, but God raised him. We were dead in our sins, but God has given us new life in Christ. On one occasion, Paul&#8217;s fellow Christians failed him, but the Lord was with him. Is He any less with us today?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;<em>Many are the afflictions of the righteous, <strong>but the Lord<\/strong> delivers him out of them all<\/em>&#8221; (Psalm 34:19).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by David Gibson When troubles mount, as they often do, we need the assurance these passages offer us: &#8220;And the patriarchs, jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt; but God\u00a0was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions . . .&#8221; (Acts 7:9-10). &#8220;And when they had carried out all that was written&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[90,1685],"class_list":["post-91532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-god","tag-help"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":93651,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/saved-by-faith\/","url_meta":{"origin":91532,"position":0},"title":"Saved by Faith","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 3, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Hugh DeLong \"But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved-\u00a0 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":62458,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-acts-17-approach-to-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":91532,"position":1},"title":"The Acts 17 Approach to God","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 2, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"by Doy Moyer Acts 17 provides a framework for some basic understanding of God. Think especially about the phrase in verse 25: \"as though He needed anything.\" In that phrase is found the essence of who God is. God needs nothing more to be complete or to function with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":69774,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/dead-and-raised\/","url_meta":{"origin":91532,"position":2},"title":"Dead and Raised","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 12, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Paul describes our pre-conversion state as \"dead in trespasses and sin\" (Ephesians 2:1). We walked like others in the world, but we were spiritually dead toward God. But from our dead state, He \"made us alive together with Christ\" (Ephesians 2:5). We were \"raised up together\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Article&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20187,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-is-it-wrong-to-pray-to-saints\/","url_meta":{"origin":91532,"position":3},"title":"Why is it wrong to pray to saints?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Why is it wrong for Catholics to pray to saints? Answer: Well, first of all, prayers to someone dead is an exercise in futility. The dead cannot hear your prayers. They are no longer involved in life. \"For the living know that they will die; but\u00a0the dead know nothing,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1017,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-could-cornelius-be-righteous-if-all-of-mans-righteousness-are-filthy-rags-before-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":91532,"position":4},"title":"How could Cornelius be righteous if all of man&#8217;s righteousness are filthy rags before God?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 17, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hey Mr. Jeffrey, I'm having trouble in my understanding on a matter. In the book of Isaiah it seems to insinuate that a man's righteousness is filthy rags before God, and Isaiah, a righteous prophet, felt unclean in the sight of Holy Yahweh; yet, the Bible also states we\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":42638,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/incorrect-paradigms-on-grace-works-righteousness-and-believes-in-him\/","url_meta":{"origin":91532,"position":5},"title":"Incorrect Paradigms on Grace: &#8220;Works Righteousness&#8221; and &#8220;Believes in Him&#8221;","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jonathan Perz \"Then Peter opened his mouth and said: \"In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him. The word which God sent to the children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ-He is Lord\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}