What Can Separate Us?

In Romans 8:35-39 Paul writes, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,  ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long;  we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Though we are currently in the 1 Peter series, I keep getting drawn back Paul’s writing.  This passage in particular.  Paul starts with the question, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”  He proceeds to write a fairly lengthy list of various things that might pull us from the love of Christ but the answer to all of these things is, “no.”  No, tribulation wont pull us from the love of Christ.  No, death won’t pull us from the love of Christ.  No, present circumstance wont pull us from the love of Christ.  And his final “no” I find most impactful of all, “nor anything else in all creation…”  There is nothing in this world that can separate us from the love of Christ!  No matter what tribulation we find ourself in we can take refuge in the fact that we are in the loving hands of our Savior!  Nothing!  As we continue this series on suffering and as we personally encounter “various trials,” we can find our hope and joy in knowing that we have a God who loves us, not with a fleeting love but with an inseparable love.  “Jesus loves me this I know” are not just words of cute familiar old hymn, but a truly foundational truth to our lives.  We need to remind ourselves of it, and be thankful for it daily.