ROMANS 8:38

38
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither
angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor
any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in
all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of
God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Paul the Apostle is fully persuaded that God loves him.
However, his personal circumstances totally contradicted this
perception on many occasions. He had been beaten, rejected
and endured all manner of suffering and yet remained
unshaken. The foundation of this persuasion is the gospel,
God had not spared his own Son and therefore regardless of
his logic and experiences, he remained fully persuaded.
God’s pleasure with Paul is based upon his pleasure with
Christ’s sacrifice, not on what Paul does or does not. Paul’s
works do not enter the equation. The foundation of this love
is Christ. How did this connection to the love of God translate
into Paul’s life?
This verse clearly indicates that God’s love enabled Paul to
live victoriously in the face of this list of opponents. Whatever
Paul encountered; he overcame. In fact, anything that he had
not mentioned, whatever future events lay ahead, God would
enable Paul to conquer that opposition. How did he conquer?
Paul conquered because he had access to the grace of God
through the death and resurrection of Christ. Jesus is
eternally in heaven making intercession and his sacrifice is
that intercession ever before God. Through this intercession,
grace and strength is communicated to Paul to gain the
victory.
Time and time again this victory in difficult circumstances
reinforced through personal experience and validated to Paul
this grace to endure and overcome. Paul was living a life in
which God loved him and rather than experiencing a life
without problems, he was continually beset by trials and
challenges. This is what the Christian life entails. It is not a life
of ease and blessing, but a life where God is glorified in our
challenges as evidence that Jesus’ sacrifice has justified us
before God, and we now have access to his mercy and grace.
We overcome by the continual intercession of Christ that
grants us his perpetual favour that is mediated and given
through the sacrifice of Christ.
We need to remind ourselves that in our circumstances which
will be continuous challenges, it is not our own wisdom, wit
and nous that has granted us victory, but the Lord Jesus
Christ’s intercessory sacrifice. Challenges are an opportunity
to display his grace, and we must ever offer up prayer
through Christ to grant us strength to overcome based on his
death and resurrection. Our persuasion must be built upon
the gospel and his intercession, not our works and upon his
grace and not our wisdom to gain victory in life’s challenges.
It is not enough to read Paul’s words and live upon his
experience. Each Christian will experience in their own
measure the challenges and victory according to the will of
God. However, life and its challenges to our faith do not get
easier. The trials of Abraham got harder and harder, as it did
for Jacob. We must never ignore the great biblical examples
before us of endurance which encourage us, but by the same
token we must ourselves taste the narrow pathway that leads
to life. But is his grace and his glory that will be exhibited in
the victory, in our overcoming, and not our strength, but his
grace.