Our Fears for Today

May 15, 2014

Our Fears for Today

“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?”

Romans 8:35

St. Paul said, “Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). While faith and hope will last forever, they will change. Faith will become sight and hope will become reality. However, love will last forever, and will not change, because Jesus Christ is love, and “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

In affirming the great love of God in Christ Jesus, the Apostle Paul is most eloquent in his prose extolling the inability of anything in the earth, above the earth, or below the earth to separate us from God’s love. For me, sometimes Paul’s prose in Romans 8:35-39, is so beautiful I have a hard time processing it in a way that I can personally experience the truth he is conveying. I find it difficult to personally identify with: calamity, persecuted, hungry, destitute, danger, threatened with death, we are killed every day, we are being slaughtered like sheep, death, angels, demons, powers of hell, power in the sky above or in the earth below.

However, when he includes our fears for today and our worries about tomorrow, he is getting my attention. Those two realities help me incorporate the issues of my world such as my weakness, my being “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love (Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing), my inadequacies, my loneliness, my depression, my anxiety over my grandchildren’s future, my negative self-image, rejection by the ones I love, economic uncertainty, and health issues, just to name a few. “Despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

Indeed, nothing I experience in all of my life, “will ever be able to separate (me) from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39). I hope your heart is rejoicing in this Good News.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.