US president Roosevelt famously addressed his nation in the grip of the Great Depression. His people needed a word of confidence and hope to tackle the economic and social challenges that lay ahead. He said; ‘only thing we have to fear is...fear itself.’
2000 years before, St Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome (Romans 8) to encourage them to be bold and confident in following Jesus. They faced plenty of threats; threats from the authorities and political powers, spiritual threats from the unseen powers of evil, and our own doubts about whether God really could love us with all our mistakes, bad choices and mixed-up motives.
Paul doesn’t dismiss those threats and fears, but he calls us to respond to them by trusting in something bigger and more real than those threats. God’s love and power in Jesus Christ.
He reminds us (vs 31-33) that ‘God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son.’ God can be trusted because in Jesus, he has fully committed himself to us and our human experience. God knows what it’s like to be you. His cross is proof of how far he’d go for you to know that.
And finally, Paul declares (vs 37-390. that absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love No-thing, no-one, no-fear, nothing now, nothing in the future, nothing above us, nothing below us, or anything else can separate us from God’s love. Ever!
Pastor David Spike
Pastor for Ministry and Formation
david.spike@levnt.edu.au
