Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture - Romans 8 v 35 (mess)
This blew my mind apart yesterday. The first part I am cool with. Nothing that happens to me from outside circumstances can separate me from God's love. The credit crunch, repossession, redundancy, illness these are the types of things that can happen to us very often not because of anything we have done and certainly not because we have done anything wrong.
The last phrase is the big left hook though. "not even the WORST sins recorded in scripture". No this is different this is something we do. And the very worst sin listed in scripture that you carry out can not drive a wedge between you and God's love. Now that is an incredible definition of grace. That is revolutionary love.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Revolutionary love
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Rom 8:35-38 is one of my best passages in the bible but I have never read it in the Message version. It is really mind blowing that not even the worst sin listed in scripture can separate us from God's love.
There is also reassurance in verse 35 for all those who, when they are going through stuff, feel that God no longer loves them. In the New Living Translation, verse 35 comes in the form of two questions. The second question asks - "Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death?" The answer is in verse 37 which says "No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loves us."
In essence, that he loves us or that we cannot be separated from his love does not mean that we do not go through stuff. When we do go through stuff his love enables us to overcome.
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