Click this link to hear an audio version of the below text narrated by SOTH member Jerry Rhinehart:
Romans 8:31-39 (NIV)
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 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, 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.
Do you ever remember getting lost when you were at the store with a parent? Worse, do you remember ever momentarily losing one of your own little ones? I imagine this doesn’t happen anymore as you can just put a little tag on your child and track them on your phone. I still remember the terror of that momentary separation. That is the feeling I recall when I read Paul’s words, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?” (Romans 8:35) Paul’s answer is simple: No one. Reflect on the truth that nothing can separate us from God. Praise and thank God this day that you are his, and nothing can pull you away.