31 October 2013 - power of his love

 31 October 2013 - power of his love

If God is for us, who can be against us?
The only thing that can hold us back is us.

He did not spare his own Son
but handed him over for us all,
how will he not also give us everything else along with him?
We can see from the lengths to which he goes that there is nothing that he will not give. 

What will separate us from the love of Christ?
Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine,
or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?
We face many dire circumstances in our lives.  Yet no circumstance can keep us from one who pours out his love on us without limit.  We know that God is omnipotent.  We only imagine his power helping us, making circumstances that we don't like disappear.  But he helps us first with his love which is, in a sense, even more powerful than his power.  He could make these circumstances vanish, but by leading us through them in love the result is greater still.

No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly
through him who loved us.
God acquits us.  Do these circumstances condemn?  We sometimes feel them as condemnation.  We think the tough circumstances of our lives are the end of us.  We can't see beyond them.  They are like a prison from which we cannot escape.  Yet Chris Jesus tastes the harshest of all circumstances for us and is raised "at the right hand of God".  He intercedes for us, ensuring that none of these things have the last word.

He makes us more than conquerors by our union with him.  For none of these circumstances "will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."  This is the power of his love!

Jesus longs for this union with us.  Nothing can prevent it or break it except us. 

how many times I yearned to gather your children together
as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
but you were unwilling!
Listen to the tender love he has for us.  He wants to gather us under his wings.  When we take refuge in his wings we will not fear the terror or the night nor the the arrow that flies by day (cf. Psa. 91).  We become more than conquerors amidst such battles, trampling "the lion and the dragon".  All that we need to be "set on high" is to know his name!

Let us take refuge in his wings so that the whole world may see that there is a power greater than circumstance.  This power is the love of Jesus.  It is him who delivers us.

And let them know that this is your hand;
that you, O LORD, have done this.
I will speak my thanks earnestly to the LORD,
and in the midst of the throng I will praise him,
For he stood at the right hand of the poor man,
to save him from those who would condemn his soul.