What a year it has been. I am sure that each one of you can say that 2016 was a year filled with unexpected blessings coupled with untold sorrows. But isn’t that what life on this earth is all about. Beautiful sweetness mingled with grief-stricken bitterness.
But even so, there is always hope and there is always joy when our confidence is in the Lord.
Each new year, I ask the Lord to give me a special word that I can carry with me through the year, that I can use as my encouragement and my anchor when life feels as if it has lined up all the odds against me.
Because it is at those times, that we need a strong reminder; ‘If God is for us, who can be against us.’
Romans 8:31-38 New Living Translation (NLT)
Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love
31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 32 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? 33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”[a]) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[b] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
If we take a look at each verse a little more closely, we can see how completely encouraging this portion of scripture really is.
God will graciously give us all things
32 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?
Here, the apostle Paul is using a method of arguing from the greater to the lesser. If God has already given us the greatest gift possible (he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all), then God will certainly give us everything else that we need (he will also in and through Jesus, graciously give us all things).
No one will bring a charge against us
33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself.
Do not be afraid because no one can take us to court before God and win a case against us, because God himself is the one who has declared us righteous.
No one will condemn us
34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
No one can condemn us to hell on judgment day because Jesus himself died for us. He was raised for us, and he is now at the right hand of God, interceding for us.
We are eternally secure in Christ.
Nothing will separate us from the love of Christ (Rom. 8:35–39).
35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?
37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.
Christ loves us, and no enemy or weapon or calamity can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What awesome victory is ours.
What wonderful peace is ours.
What endless joy is ours if we just hold onto these four truths.
So let us bid 2016 goodbye with a sigh of thankfulness and a breath of hope for a brighter future in the year that lies ahead.