We ended part 3 with this verse in Romans 8:34:
34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
Now Paul goes on to write the most powerful truths about God’s love for us. Just study through these next five verses and see my comment at the end.
35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?
36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”
37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Verse 37 says that despite all these things. What things? Trouble or calamity, or persecution, or hunger, or destitute, or danger, or threats of death. Despite all of this, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ WHO LOVED US.
Then Paul nails the lid shut about God’s great love for us. When he gets done with his list of things that might separate us from God’s love, he simply declares there is nothing that is left or able to do so.
I love these quotes by one of my Grace mentors, Malcolm Smith. “God’s love for us is so great and so vast, without condition, that it appears scandalous to those who are religious and works/performance oriented.”
“God who is love refuses to be God without us. He is the one that must come where we are. He is unalterably, unconditionally, unendingly for you.”
Here’s another of my mentors. Graham Cooke.
“One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to utterly convince you that you are completely, compellingly loved by God regardless of how you are showing up. That means to God it doesn’t matter, in that sense, whether you are doing well or doing badly. He has already chosen how He is going to be towards you, and He doesn’t change.”
Many believers are told they need to love God more. Then there are others who you will encounter saying “God I just love you, but I need to love you more”. That’s not truth.
You’ve been told you need to love God more and that’s your greatest need. The truth is we need to understand how much God loves us. That’s our greatest need.
You can’t even begin to love God as much as you want to until you understand how much He loves you. Again, trying to love God more or teach the error that we need to love God more puts the burden of works and performance back on us. Then when we fail at the works/performance situation, condemnation comes our way. That’s not in line with verse 1 of this chapter 8 of Romans.
Scripture says WE love because HE FIRST loved us. There’s no way we could even begin to love God until we realized He actually loved us. Quit focusing on how you might love God more and focus on How much love God has for you. It’s not about your love for God, it’s about His love for us. Everything about grace is about what God has done, is doing, and will do for you. It’s Him doing the doing and us receiving.
When you get your mindset away from the truth of all that was said in this teaching, you will live a life of condemnation. Much of it self condemnation. However, when you get the full revelation of the great love and grace of God toward you, you will find yourself set free from the tyranny of other people and more importantly you’ll be set free from the tyranny of yourself.
Throughout this teaching from Romans 8, you have heard that you are His children. You are heirs. God loves you. He first loved you. Even Jesus said in John 17:23 “I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me”.
Now I don’t know about you, but when Jesus says something, it’s Truth. He said God loves me as much as He loves Jesus. That’s because I’m an heir and joint heir with Jesus. I’m God’s child. I can call Him Abba Father. He’s crazy about me, so there’s no fear of him ever condemning me or of me ever losing His love for me. Besides, how can you condemn something that has already been accepted. “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus”.
Grace and Peace.
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