Love Always Perseveres

In Romans 8 Paul asks what can separate us from the love of God.   Makes a list saying, “Can these hardships stop God from loving us?”

Trouble?

Hardship?

Persecution?

Famiine?

Nakedness?

Danger?

Sword?

In other words, if you have problems and trials to the point where you have nothing to eat or where, if you are facing dangers, even if your life is threatened or taken, can that stop God’s love from persevering?

His response:

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 

And then he makes another list.  He says “I am convinced that none of these things can separate us from God’s love either:

Death,

life

angels

demons

the present

the future

any powers

height

depth

or ANYTHING ELSE in all of creation,

will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ.

Wow.   Just wow.

So today, my question is this:   If we love and attempt to love as God did, then our love should others in the same way.

When it comes to my children, Bart and I can make this statement:   What can separate you from our love?  Neither stealing from us, nor lying from us, neither jail time or expected pregnancies, neither curse words nor threats on our lives, nor false allegations, failing school, refusing to speak to us, or even your indifference will separate you from our love.

I’m not saying that we have loved perfectly, in fact many of the adjectives that describe love in the First Corinthians passage aren’t always true of us.  But we have persevered.  We have not given up.  We still hope for and pray for all of our children … no matter what.

We serve a no matter what God… so our response to others should be a love that perseveres, no matter what.