Separated from love

I once heard a speaker read through Romans 8, specifically the passage asking us, “What can separate us from the love of God….NOTHING can separate us from the love of God.”  He went on to speak maybe 2 minutes and posed the question, “Now dialogue with me for a couple minutes.  What kinds of things separate you from the love of God?  What things separate us from the love of God?” Hands went up all over the place!  Everyone had an answer.  “Sin!” “Temptation!” “Peers!” “Choices!” “Expectations!

I was dumbfounded!  We just read the passage 2 minutes before.  Had we already forgotten?  Did we really understand the first time?  I could not believe it.  We had just stood up and read aloud as a community in one voice that said, “NOTHING can separate us from the love of God.”  Why is this so hard for us to believe that we forget a pointblank reading of it 2 minutes later?

Something is terribly wrong here!

We are convinced that so many things can actually separate us from the love of God.  Yet, in a rare instance, the Bible is finely black and white on this issue.  We have convinced ourselves that we can separate ourselves from the love of God.

I am of the mind and heart that we can be separated from God, but we cannot be separated from his love in a million years.

Living out here in California has separated me from my family with most of America between us.  We all make choices and decisions that the others do not like.  So granted, I am not as close to my mom, dad, and brothers as I used to be.  We have been separated by geography.  We have been separated by growth and life decisions and choices. Does my mom love me less than she ever did?  No!  Does my dad remove his love from me? Of course not!  Have my brothers disowned me?  No!  They all still love me, and I still love all of them even though we are separated.  Nothing can separate me from the love of my family.

Yes, our sin separates us from God.  Our choices will sometimes place a hole, a distance between God and us.  The less time I spend with God results in lost intimacy and connection.  I can become disconnected and even separated from God.

BUT….

NOTHING CAN SEPARATE ME FROM THE LOVE OF GOD

I wonder why that is so hard for us to understand.  I took me years to realize the difference and its so simple.