No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:39
Don't just skim this verse! Read it over slowly and allow the words to sink down deep into your heart. The God of the universe loves you. He cares so deeply that He sent His only Son to die in your place. As one of His own people, there is nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of Jesus Christ. Nothing in the sky or the earth below is able to pull us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus, our Lord. This verse is amazing!
So many of us miss the fact that God loves us. We initially hear this concept of the love of God, but we process it through our own human experience. We have all seen and witnessed that love tends to be something that comes and goes. We love the Lobos when they're good, but when they have years of losing seasons, we give up. We have been to weddings and celebrated the love of a couple only to hear that they divorced a few years later. We love the new local ice cream shop, but as time goes on or we start counting calories, we quickly stop talking about it. We miss that God's love is unconditional. His end of the bargain is always held up, and His love never ends.
While God's love is constant and unending, many people at our church have a hard time understanding this type of love. They think they are too far gone to be loved by God. They start weighing all the wrong things they have done, and they think He would never welcome them back home. Nothing is further from the truth. God loves us and wants us to live a life that is connected to Him. We can't push His love away. Instead, we have to embrace it.
The William Brothers used to sing a song with the line, "I am just a nobody, trying to tell everybody about somebody who can save anybody." I like this line because it points to the fact that when God's love came into our lives, we were nobodies. We had no purpose or meaning in our lives. But when Jesus comes in, He gives us a reason to live and a passion to make Him known.
In this Forgotten War, the evil one will shake us and make us question the love of God. Take some time to write out a time in your life where you questioned the love of God. It could have been in college, or after a relationship fell apart that you began to pull away from your Savior. Then, journal about how God's love brought you back. Stand reassured that God loves you!
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
