Slices
Prepare
Sit quietly and take a few long, deep breaths. Focus your thoughts on Jesus, on his cross, on his empty tomb, and ask God to fill you with a deep awareness of his unbreakable love.
Bible passage
More than conquerors
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
‘For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 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.
Explore
What glorious words, as Paul sums up all he has taught us so far! Read through the passage again (this time from verse 28), and notice what God has done for and given to us. This is the solid ground on which we stand. All this is ours already, though we do not yet have it in full: we are the inbetweeners.
In verse 18 Paul said that the troubles of this life ‘are not worth comparing’ with God’s glory. They may appear strong, but God is stronger. Even at their worst they cannot separate us from God’s love in Christ (vs 35,39). Even in our darkest moments God is working for our ‘good’ (v 28). Nothing – nothing – even our own weakness, can frustrate his will for us: that we might be ‘conformed to the image of his Son ... the firstborn among many brothers and sisters’ (v 29). That’s us!
This does not minimise suffering, but maximises the glory, love and power of God: nothing can separate us from God’s love; nothing can stop his will for us and his work in our lives. Nothing.
Respond
We live in the tension between what we already and do not yet have in Christ. Struggles are unavoidable. But God has the last word. Declare verses 37 to 39 over a situation with which you – or someone close to you – is struggling.
Deeper Bible study
‘He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.”’1
It is impossible to imagine a more generous statement than verse 32: the God who has already given his own Son – and so God’s very self – is committed to giving us all things! How much does such a promise leave out? We are truly heirs of all things along with Christ (v 17), and it does not get any bigger. If Christians were as generous as the God in whom they believe, the church and the world might be very different places.
The emphasis is upon the confidence we may have that God is for us, that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love in Christ and that the fulfilment of God’s purpose is finally irresistible. In the short term, humans are able to resist God: what is sin if not resistance to God and God’s purpose? The Roman Christians were almost certainly facing resistance to their faith and to their presence in Rome (v 36). However, God is finally irresistible, otherwise God would not be God. Nothing in the universe can ultimately stand against the Lord. Until that day, every Christian needs to take hold of their confidence in Christ to persevere. Faith, hope and love are all needed.2 We can be confident that anything that happens to us will, by God’s power, be turned to some kind of good (v 28). Nothing in our experience need be wasted. We can live fully meaningful lives.
Where is the guarantee that these things will be? It lies in the fact that in the presence of the Father there is one human being who alone has successfully completed the human journey. Because he has done this he is the sign that others will follow. He is the firstborn over all creation,3 the first fruits from the dead,4 and a mighty harvest is to follow.
‘Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!’5
1 Rev 21:6 2 1 Cor 13:13 3 Col 1:15 4 1 Cor 15:20 5 2 Cor 9:15
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Numbers 28,29; Psalm 31
Pray for Scripture Union
As we train new Faith Guides and help them get started, please pray for them and their communities that they would find great ways to connect with the 95 at the start of their journey.
