Rom 8:35a, 37a (NKJV)
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?…Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
I often wonder. I wonder about people in other countries who risk everything to follow Christ. The Lord keeps so many safe and yet there are increasing numbers of those who pay the ultimate price. They lose their families. They lose their livelihood. They lose their standing in society. They even lose their lives.
If you read the entirety of verses 35-39 (and I hope you will), I believe these verses lay out all the challenges faced by the early Christians. I believe they lay out all the challenges we may face. Distress, doing without, loss and death; they fought spiritual and physical battles, but they saw first hand how the love of God held them and would never let them go. They knew it and lived it.
Don’t you want to walk in that kind of love? What does it look like to walk in the surety that God loves us even when it seems being obedient would risk loss? Can we be faithful irrespective of what He asks even if it means giving up something we cherish or a dream we’ve always wanted? Have you been there? Can you imagine being so sure of His love that you don’t question His motives or His guidance? When we accept His love as He has given it, we can walk in it.
I think knowing the love of God and trusting that love is the unexplainable “cog in the wheel” that this world can’t understand. It allows us to choose differently. It allows us to live differently. Most of the time we experience blessings we never would have imagined, but if those circumstances turn, I hope we would still know that His love for us is deeper, wider, higher, and stronger than any circumstance we could ever experience. I hope we would still stand in His love and know that it is enough.
I can’t explain why some people are healed of sickness and others are not. I can’t explain why some lives are saved and others become martyrs. I don’t understand why some are blessed beyond measure and others struggle. The one thing I do know is that God’s love covers His children no matter where they are and no matter what the circumstance. I know that our ability to be confident in that love comes from spending time with Him and being obedient. I believe, in the end, that God’s love provides a security that no one and nothing else can give us. Despite all and in the midst of all, we can be sure that His love for us will endure. His love is secure.