Who Can Separate us from the Love of God?

 A snippet from our pastor's message last Sunday, I trust you will find it encouraging.

Romans 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 

Who shall separate us from His Love? And a search is made to see what might be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. The search is made there in all these areas that we are familiar with, tribulation, that means trouble, do you have some trouble? Distress, which also means anguish. Persecution, famine, nakedness, perils, the sword, all these things. If any of these things could have separated us from God it would have been done long ago but here we are still here, praise the Lord. 

36 As it is written: (this is a quote from Psalm 44)

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

That is the costliness of loyalty to God in a world that is at war against God. So many times there is a cost but instead of separating us from God these things draw us closer to Him, praise the Lord. 

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

In the here and now we are more than conquerors. This is more than a triumph because even in the most terrible times of such things as sickness and decease, when our bodies are racked with pain etc, and we seem to be at our lowest of the low but then we come out of that and our spirit is lifted, and not only is that a victory for us but it brings glory to God, and it builds up those who are with us and blesses them, and it is a witness to those who don’t believe, they wonder how this can be. And it seems that obstacles become stepping stones with the Lord, we are more than but it is not in our own strength, it is through Him who loved us, the power of Christ. 

The power of Christ that can change your bitterness into sweetness, 

your weakness into strength, 

a sickness into health, 

and a tragedy into a triumph, 

that can make a heartache a blessing. 

Is there anything that can separate us from God’s love? 

He lists the possibilities one by one and dismisses them all. 

Are you persuaded?  

38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Think about these things, death, death seems so final doesn’t it in the world? Death with all its terrors, and then there is life with all its allurements. And what about these angels and principalities, supernatural powers, human powers, angelic powers, demonic powers. Things present crashing in sometimes, crowding in upon us like the waves crashing onto the beach, there’s another one crashing in and another one crashing in. Things to come, a foreboding about tomorrow, what might be tomorrow, thinking about that and worrying about those things. What about height and depth, what would that be? I think it must be space and all of its contents, including all occult forces. Anything and everything is anything left out? No, it says any other created thing, you couldn’t get more comprehensive than that.  If you belong to Jesus, and you belong to Him now then you belong to Him forever. Start your day with confidence in what he says there, resting in what he says, and patiently waiting for Him in your present circumstances with a heart full of praise and wonder for the greatness of God’s provision for us, amen.