Description
Today let’s focus on what Paul means when he asks, in Romans 8:35, whether any disaster separates us from God’s love.
Transcript
Let’s meditate on Romans 8, verse 35, and ask. What is this about? Romans 8 verse 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
I think here we’ve got the Apostle Paul begging the question, and if you see it in the context of the whole chapter, you can see that the answer is clearly, no one, no one can separate us from the love of Christ. And that is, despite all the things that he then lists. And I guess that the Christians at the time were going, all these terrible things are happening to us, Paul, does this mean God doesn’t love us anymore?
Paul says, no, nothing about this says that God doesn’t love us anymore. Absolutely not.
And I think about my own experience as a father: I have twins who have disabilities and one of them is very profoundly disabled. And the indicators that we are often using to understand whether or not somebody is worthy of love is what they achieve, what their character is like, how they behave. But I see in Morgan, such a valuable, lovely person in my son, and I can’t help but love him.
And I can’t help but love my other son, James. For who they are, not for what they do, not for the characters that they possess, not for what they achieve, not for whether they’re good or bad, just for them. And if I can do that with my own children, how much more is God loving us, regardless of what is going on in our lives, regardless of whether or not we’re sinning and how often and how repetitively?
No, nothing and no one shall separate us from the love of Christ. Remember that.
Thank you, God, for your enduring, faithful, eternal love towards us who don’t deserve it. Amen.
