Nothing Can Separate You From the Love of God
May 22, 2017 3140
If you say that everything in your life is perfect, and that you aren’t facing huge challenges within yourself right now, then you are most probably delusional. We all experience inner struggles that make us question and doubt who we are, and our purpose in life.
I like to think of life as a journey. I’ve done a lot of travelling, and staying in touch with home is a lot easier now than it used to be in the past. Now, as long as I have an internet connection, I can speak with, chat, and even see, my wife and kids wherever I am in the world. It doesn’t make up for not being with them, but it certainly goes a long way to feeling closer to them and their love.
One of the most wonderful passages in the Bible is found in Romans 8. It was written by the Apostle Paul, who knew a thing or two about travelling. He writes,
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?… 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,[k]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. (Rom 8:35,37–39).
The reality is that we’re all travelers. We’re travelers through this world, and what keeps us all going is the search for love. Many are misguided into thinking that they are searching for something else, but they aren’t. It’s always love that we look for, because we were made to love and be loved.
It’s easy to think we’ve found what we’re looking for in our relationships with others, but we haven’t. Often our love will be betrayed. And even the very best kinds of love are only a pointer to the ultimate goal of our journey. We were made to be loved by God and to love him in return.
But the apostle Paul tells us that this experience isn’t something that we only have to look forward to in the future, but that instead it is a present reality, whatever our current circumstances may be. The love of God is not the goal of the journey, it is in the journey itself.
You can know that that is true, because Jesus, God With Us (Matt. 1:23), came here to earth to journey alongside us. Jesus was love incarnate (1 John 4:8). He experienced the pain, the hurts, and the betrayals alongside us; all the sorrows that we have felt. He knows what it is to feel all alone. Yet he came to this earth and never abandoned us (Matt. 28:20). If Jesus didn’t abandon you at Calvary, how could he abandon you now?
Refuse to Listen to the Voices That Condemn and Belittle You
Love: we all want it. We all need it. In Romans 8, the apostle Paul exhausts the limits of human language to assure us that absolutely nothing can separate us from the love of God. And that means everything to us.
He lists all kinds of troubles in this world: no, through the love of God we will overcome all these things. He considers the two polarities of existence, life and death: no, they cannot separate us from the love of God. Paul then considers the greatest beings in the universe after God: angels will never separate us from God’s love, and demons can’t. He considers the spatial dimensions: no, you can never be so low or so high as to be separated from God’s love. And just in case he’s missed something, Paul concludes that there isn’t anything else in all of creation that can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Where’s your journey brought you? It’s taken me to some pretty dark places in the past. But those feelings of loneliness, of abandonment, and of failure aren’t the truth. Whether you’re in bed unable to get up to face the day, or curled up in the corner of a room on the floor, nothing can separate you from the love of God.
So, refuse to listen to the voices that condemn and belittle you. Your feelings lie and betray you; only the assurance of God’s love is the truth. Believe it, and as a child of God, take his hand, and let your journey continue. He will certainly bring you to a place where his love will heal you, and you will grow, in that same love, into who you were always meant to be.
– Eliezer Gonzalez
Katrina Moorhead
Jul 14, 2018
Yes & Amen! Thank you for publishing your thoughts on Romans 8:35-38. “A good word rightly spoken.”