Romans 8:18 “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.”

This isn’t a wishful thought. Paul has done the spiritual math. The word behind “I consider” is a word often used with ancient balance sheets. It could be translated “reckon,” as in “day of reckoning.” They didn’t have the computerized spread sheets we have today, but they still had to track income and expenses, debits and credits, to run a successful business. In Paul’s picture, suffering stands in the expenses or debits column. Glory stands in the income or credits column. He does some reckoning to see how they compare, to see if you can balance the budget.

Both Paul and his audience understood that the entries in the “sufferings” column were real and severe. In a later verse he reminds us that “the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth.” He may have been an unmarried, childless male, but he understood that the pain of labor and delivery ranks extremely high on the scale of human suffering. And he knew that suffering was personal for each of us. Our bodies are broken. Our relationships don’t work right. Strained friendships, stressed marriages, unruly children and pushy parents–do you know anyone who gets along with everyone all the time? Our jobs are a pain–too much work, too little pay, unreasonable expectations, office politics. The suffering column on the human balance sheet goes on for pages with these and 10,000 more liabilities I haven’t mentioned.

Now here is the astounding part. Paul tells us, “Take all of this together, add it up, and the sum total is a tiny decimal point so insignificant that there is nothing to compare with the riches of glory that our lives are destined to become.” We have so much more to look forward to than just a “better place.” A “better place” could be the subdivision just to the east of mine where the homes are bigger and better built; or it could be a private island in the tropics with a multi-million-dollar mansion and a place to dock my yacht. But is “better” good enough–a place with less sickness, less stress, less confrontation, and less frustration?

We are destined for glory, not just a beautiful and light filled place with good neighbors and the perfect climate all year round. This is glory “that will be revealed in us.” This glory marks a change in you and me. Paul goes on to explain, “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.” Today you and I look relatively ordinary. We aren’t glowing. Stick me in a police line-up because some male committed a crime, and the victim isn’t automatically going to say of me, “Well, obviously it can’t be him, all shiny and holy like that.” I look pretty much like other 60 year-old, five feet ten inch men. We don’t behave so differently. Put us under stress and we just might show our darker sides, short temper, not very nice things to say. Ask my wife sometime how I am when a home improvement project isn’t going my way.

But we are more than we appear. What you can’t see now is that we are sons of God. Even if you are a woman you are son of God in this sense. He has adopted us as full-fledged members of his family with all the rights and privileges of ancient sonship. He did it when he called us to faith and baptized us as his own. Adoptions can be expensive. Our adoption as God’s sons cost the life of the one and only Son who had been a member of the family from eternity. Jesus’ blood paid to remove every sin that disqualified us from a place in the family of God. This makes us so much more than we appear.            

And the day is coming when God will strip away the shell that hides our glory as the sons of God. He is planning a big reveal: “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever,” (Daniel 12:3). This body that is planted in the ground perishable, like the rotting fruits and vegetables in my compost pile, will be raised in power and glory: imperishable, immortal, and spiritual. “He (Jesus) will transform our lowly bodies, so that they will be like his glorious body,” Paul writes the Philippians. And why shouldn’t he? He is the Son of God, and by his death and sacrifice that is what he has made us, too: the very sons and daughters of God. That is glory for those who suffer in our broken world.