Sumter Pastor Joey Durham: Nothing can separate believers from Christ
Today's devotion asks this question, "Who Can Separate the Saved from the Savior?" My text is Romans 8:35-39, where we read, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (KJV)
Here, Paul is bringing to our heart that the position of the believer on Christ is eternally secure because the believer is justified by God, not man, so the security of the believer is all of God, not man.
The word "separate" in our text means "to divorce." Unfortunately, there are husbands and wives who do on occasion divorce because one or both stop loving one another, but that cannot be said about the love of Christ. There is nothing that can break that bond of love the Savior has for those whom He has saved. God's Word states that nothing can divorce the saved, born-again believer from being in and remaining in the love of God. Not tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword can separate us from the love of Christ.
Paul then quotes Psalm 44:22, which says, "Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter." (KJV) The reason Paul was led to use this verse is because of the great persecution and trouble the church was facing and was going to face under the cruelty of the Roman Emperor Nero. Believers in that day were going to be tested to the extreme, and they would need these words of encouragement before many sealed their testimony as a martyr for the cause of Christ.
The apostle Paul goes on to say that, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." Paul was persuaded, and you and I can be too, that nothing on earth, in heaven, or in hell, nor any person has the power to divorce the believer from the securing love of our Savior. Because this is true, we can be encouraged, have hope, and grow in our faith because, as our Lord declares in John 10:28 "And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." (KJV)
Joey Durham is pastor at Open Bible Baptist Church at 180 Old Manning Road in Sumter. You can contact Pastor Durham at durham.joey@yahoo.com or call the church office at (803) 481-9315.