Encouragements for our troubled times No. 07
COVID-19 Series | Date: 07 May 2020
The Elders and Deacons want to encourage the members and those who regularly meet with us through this weekly letter. If you have news which you would be happy to share with the fellowship or request for prayer, then please let us know.
A message from your Pastor
Romans 8:35-37
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘for Your sake, we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us.”
What a comfort to know that there is neither any condemnation for us nor anyone who can legitimately condemn us before the judge of all the world. It’s just not possible because Christ has died and the work that He did on Calvary on our behalf fully satisfied all that God and His laws demand. He has paid the price and God, being just, cannot require a second payment from us.
On the basis of these great truths, Paul now asks us a question, “who can separate us from the love of Christ?” Who or what indeed? His love for us precedes time and spans eternity. It is an everlasting love. He loved us before time began before we ever existed and had done any good or evil. And while we were yet sinners He loved us and gave Himself for us. Therefore who or what can separate us from the love of our wonderful Saviour? And the answer is nothing can. Nothing we may go through in this life, not tribulation (the problems and difficulties of life), distress (any distressing situation like sickness, injury, violence, etc), nor persecution (afflictions laid upon us for our love of Christ). And nothing we may have to endure in this world, famine, nakedness, peril, not even sword. It’s true that some of the Lord’s people are being “killed all day long” but that cannot separate them from His love. No matter what the world does to us or what we have to endure in this fallen, sinful world it cannot change the fact that He loves us and gave Himself for us and will keep us for Himself to the end. Nothing will change His love for us and during those bad times He will make His love known to us, He will never leave us nor forsake us.
Therefore Paul can tell us, under the inspiration of God, “in all things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” If we suffer the loss of all things in this world does that mean He no longer loves us? No, we are more than conquerors because we have a Heavenly reward that cannot be taken from us. If we should suffer persecution for His sake and be made to recant, will He stop loving us? No, we are more than conquerors because even though we may be forced to turn from Him he can never be forced to stop loving us. Even death only serves to cast us into the loving arms of our Saviour and unlocks Heaven’s door to us. No, we truly are more than conquerors in our Savour. His love for us will never diminish now or for all eternity.
So friends, as we face the uncertainties that are before us, isolation, sickness, loss, distress, we know our Saviour, Who loves us, will be with us and will help us and keep us in His love to the end. And we know that whatever we lose in this life, even our lives, cannot be compared to what our loving Saviour has for us for all eternity.