28 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.29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.34 Who then can condemn? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
My thoughts -
Paul said in Chapter 5 that Jesus died, not for the righteous but for the ungodly. While we were God's enemies God became human in the form of Jesus and dies as a sacrifice to reconcile us, God's enemies, to God. If we, when we were God's enemies, were reconciled to God through Jesus, what can separate us from God's love? Is there anything that we can do to separate ourselves from God? If so, why would Jesus have been sacrificed to reconcile God's enemies to God?
Is there anything that anyone else can do? Look at what Paul says in verse 35: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?" That's a bad list, and yet he responds that no, these are powerless.
But my favorite is what Paul says in verse 38 and 39. Read this and be encouraged:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
There is nothing in this world that can separate us from God's love for us through Jesus. There is nothing NOT in this world that can separate us from God's love for us through Jesus. Nothing. Not death, not life. Not angels, not demons. Not present, not future. Not any powers. Not height, not depth. Nothing in creation can separate from God's love for us in Jesus. Not sin, not our past. Nothing we've done or can do, nor anyone else for that matter. NOTHING.
We were God's enemies. We were slaves to our sinful natures. This may not even have been a problem for us, but it was for God. God wanted to reconcile with us, God's enemies (I can't stress that word, "enemies" enough) so badly that God did what I still consider insane, God became one of us, a human, in the form of Jesus. Not only did God do that, but God DIED FOR US.
Think about that. God, the giver of all life, died. That's CRAZY. If God would do that for God's own enemies how can we NOT be reconciled to God through this? How can we undo what God has done in Jesus? How could anyone? How could anything?
Nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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