Romans 8:28 Explained: How God Uses Everything for Our Good
- Jack Selcher
- Sep 8, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
Summary
Romans 8:28 assures believers that God uses every circumstance—even suffering—for their ultimate good. This promise applies to those who love God and are called by Him. Salvation is entirely by grace, and God’s purpose is to shape believers into Christ’s likeness. Trials cannot separate believers from God’s love or defeat His plan. In Christ, they are secure, victorious, and eternally assured.
Romans 8:28 Explained
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28 NIV). Even our accidents and injuries are part of God’s reconstruction project.
Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski began in 1948 to reduce Thunderhead Mountain in South Dakota into an image of Chief Crazy Horse sitting on his horse. God is reducing the mountains of our self-centeredness into the image of His Son.
Be patient with yourself and others. Temporary pain will yield permanent improvement. That is the good news of Romans 8:28 explained.
Called, Loved, and Chosen by God
Romans 8:28 is not a promise for everyone. It is for us who love God, whom He calls according to His purpose.
We have received Jesus as God’s provision for our sins. Our love for God springs from responding to His call. No merit is involved.
Predestination and Becoming Like Christ
Election is God’s sovereign choosing in Christ those He foreknew would receive Him as their Savior and Lord. Predestination is God’s determination to accomplish that purpose.
Repentance, faith, and good works do not earn God’s salvation. It is all by His undeserved favor.
Suffering With a Guaranteed Outcome
Predestination’s purpose is to make us like Jesus and exhibit His glory. That includes sharing in His sufferings and progressively thinking and behaving more like Him.
At the resurrection, our bodies will become like His body (Philippians 3:21). God sent Him in our likeness so that we might eventually be like Him.
It will happen. God’s faithfulness guarantees it. God is for us! It does not matter who or what is against us! God did not spare His own Son (Romans 8:32). He sent Him to the cross to take away our sins.
Since that’s true, God certainly will not withhold anything we need for life or godliness (2 Peter 1:3). We will have struggles, but they are not without purpose.
Suffering has always been a way of life for the godly (Psalm 44:22). Our comfort or lack of it is not a good measure of how much God loves us.
Life’s trials are like a dull table knife that cannot cut the suspension bridge cables of God’s love. Through Jesus, we are super conquerors.
Our ultimate victory is not an Olympic medal or earthly fame. We are foreknown, predestinated, called, justified, and glorified children of God. No one can take any of that away from us.
No one can successfully press charges against us. All sin is against God (Psalm 51:4). He alone can bring charges against us.
But He will not because He is for us, not against us. Christ will not deny the effective remedy of His death on our behalf.
Unshakable Assurance of God’s Love
Nothing in all creation can drive a wedge between us and God’s love. Because God loves us, He seeks our eternal happiness.
His love for us ignites ours for Him and the service that love motivates. It is a blessed assurance! See additional free spiritual growth resources for Christians.
God has empowered me to write His Power for Your Weakness—260 Steps Toward Spiritual Strength. It’s a free, evangelistic, devotional, and discipleship e-book. Pastors have used it in Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia to lead 7,590 people to Christ and teach the basics of Christianity to 17,681 people. I invite you to explore and use it in your setting.
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