Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 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.** Romans 8:35-39 (NIV)**
Where is our hope placed? Is it in our accolades or our accomplishments, our work or our wisdom, our family or our friends, our treasures, travels, pleasures or whatever’s – if it is not placed on the Lord Jesus we will always come up wanting. He alone satisfies the soul – not in a temporary but rather in a permanent fashion. It is never Jesus plus something else it is always and forever, just Jesus. He is our suitable portion. All else is merely a cherry on top – nice but not necessary. Nothing fills the heart to overflowing as He does – Who came to give us life and life to the full. Everything the soul needs is found in Him – there is no earthly portion that can fill a human soul – and Jesus not only fills, but fills to overflowing. Our earthly portions will never full satisfy these vacuous souls of ours. Jesus suits every present condition – even the most arduous and life shattering. He is the Master at putting the broken pieces of our lives back together again.
Often we stand confused on what is truly good, Amen? As believers, God is conforming us into the image of His Son and all that He allows in the lives of His heirs of mercy is towards our reaching this most wonderfully high goal. The highest good is that which is the most suitable for the soul and our Lord Jesus is the highest good. Our Lord was well acquainted with grief – a man of sorrows and familiar with sufferings. So when our soul’s groan and our hearts howl over our dire circumstances, we can know He too weeps over what is all-together wrong – standing with us when we experience deep loss – death to dreams, death over life, death over love, death over true trust – despising it more than we do. Remember, sin and death entered with our original parent’s choice and choices we continue to make to this day. All wrongdoing is sin, and Jesus came and died to set us free from this. He became sin for us so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. We are therefore to live in an attitude of hope – not hope in things rather hope in Him Who will one day make everything new. And we do this through His power and for His glory. It is then that we shine like stars in the universe as we hold out the Word of life through our actions and words – pointing others to Him and not to us as works of this kind are so other worldly. Scripture tells us in Proverbs 13:12 (NIV): “Hope deferred makes the heart sick but a longing fulfilled is the tree of life.” And Jesus desires for us to live in this attitude of hope.
For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Romans 8:24-25 (NIV)