The recent home-going of a dear friend and brother, Scott Richardson, has brought to my mind many pleasant remembrances of him. Once when I was going through a great trial, he called me on the phone and said, “I just wanted to let you know I’m for you.” 

“I’m for you.” Those words were a great encouragement to me then and continue to be so to this day. What a great blessing it is to have one such as Brother Scott “for you.” He was praying for me, thinking of me and willing to help me in any way. As I reflected on his words, it came to my mind that his being “for me” was only because of someone else being for me. That someone is God Himself! Every blessing I have, even such a dear brother and fellow gospel servant as brother Scott, I have because of His grace to me in Christ Jesus. God was “for me” and all His elect in eternity past when He loved us, chose us and predestinated all things concerning us and put us in that grace-union with His Son before the world was. Likewise, Christ was “for” us when He stood as our Surety and Covenant Head before time. He was for us when He laid down His life for us on the cross. He was “for” us, truly in our place, when He died that horrible death of the cross in our place as our Substitute. He was for us when He gave Himself “for” us. He was “for” us when He bore our sins in His own body there. When He suffered the Just “for” the unjust! He was “for” us when He rose from the dead and we with Him. And He is “for” us now as He is seated at the right hand of the majesty on high, making intercession “for” us. God the Spirit was “for” us when He quickened us, gave us faith and called us by the precious gospel to Christ. You see, God has always been and always will be “for” His people! May everything remind us, “If God be FOR US, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up FOR US all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31-32) I thank God this day for this dear brother and rejoice that though he is absent from the body, he is present with the LORD! Is this because he preached the true gospel so faithfully for so many years? No, it is because God was FOR HIM in Christ!

G. Shepard