Living In God's Love Changes Every Relationship
Daily Scripture
Romans 8:35-39, 1 John 4:7-8, 16
Romans 8
35 Who will separate us from Christ’s love? Will we be separated by trouble, or distress, or harassment, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
We are being put to death all day long for your sake.
We are treated like sheep for slaughter [Psalm 44:22].
37 But in all these things we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us. 38 I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers 39 or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.
1 John 4
7 Dear friends, let’s love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God. 8 The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love.
16 We have known and have believed the love that God has for us.
God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them.
Daily Reflection & Prayer
The apostle Paul sent the Romans quite a list of things that might separate them from God’s love: “trouble, or distress, or harassment, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword.” He’d faced all of those, but he wrote the list to say, “In all these things we win a sweeping victory through the one who loved us” (verse 37). That sweeping victory empowers us to love other people with the same tireless love that John said is God’s very essence. It isn’t just that God loves us, John wrote. God IS love. If the creator’s love is the ultimate source of our life, then, as Bishop Curry put it, “There’s power in love. There’s power in love to help and heal when nothing else can. There’s power in love to lift up and liberate when nothing else will. There’s power in love to show us the way to live.” *
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The Greek agape was not emotional pop culture “luv” (which can shift quickly). It was a chosen attitude. Believers “are not to think… love automatically goes on and on. It must also be supported by the exercise of the will…. Love makes allowances. Love tries to help. Love looks at the good people do in preference to dwelling on their defects.” ** How can you choose to love in that robust, tough-minded way? (Review other key verses about love like these: Colossians 3:12-14, Colossians 3:15-17 and Ephesians 4:25-32.) Paul asked, “If God is for us, who is against us?” and “Who will separate us from Christ’s love?” His phrasing assumed the answer was “Nobody and nothing!” Your grace-filled promises can win a sweeping victory over all life challenges. Ask God to shape you into the kind of person able to live that way. If you have a partner, pray with them. Ask God to fill your lives with God’s unconquerable love.
Prayer
All powerful God, whatever comes my way, keep me in the shelter of your love. Thank you that, through you, I can sustain relationships that win a sweeping, loving victory in “all these things.” Amen.
GPS Insights
Bill Gepford
Bill Gepford serves as the location pastor for Resurrection West. He has served churches in three states, and in roles as a youth pastor, associate pastor, solo pastor, lead pastor and location pastor. Bill loves to create spaces where emerging generations can experience joy. He is the husband to Melissa, the daddy to Finn and a huge fan of the K-State Wildcats and the Kansas City Chiefs. Some of his favorite hobbies are powerlifting, hiking, and camping with his family.
I recently visited a man in hospice. I was bringing him communion, and as we sat and talked after, I could tell he was in a significant amount of physical pain–until his granddaughter walked into the room. His face lit up with a joyful smile at the surprise visit (she had driven back from college just to visit him). For a moment, what he was facing was forgotten. The love of his granddaughter was stronger than the sharpest pain.
In 2010, the Stanford University school of medicine ran a study that argued: “Intense, passionate feelings of love can provide amazingly effective pain relief, similar to painkillers.” * Love is far more than a whimsical notion; love has power to impact our brains at a fundamental level.
The Apostle Paul, who wrote Romans 8, knew from firsthand experience what it was like to face “trouble, or distress, or harassment, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword.” These were not idle notions for him, but rather regular problems–and yet the love of God sustained him through each of them.
I don’t know what you are facing today. However, I believe in the One who knows you, and loves you, and walks alongside you.
And I believe that, as Paul says: “nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord: not death or life, not angels or rulers, not present things or future things, not powers or height or depth, or any other thing that is created.”
May that love carry you today.
© 2024 Resurrection: A United Methodist Church. All Rights Reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from The Common English Bible ©2011. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
References
* Curry, Bishop Michael. The Power of Love (p. 8). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
** L. L. Morris, article “Love” in Dictionary of the Later New Testament & Its Developments. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997, pp. 697-698.
