How Can We Make This Assurance Operative In Our Own Lives? Part 3b

Romans 8:28-39

(2) You also have to personalize the assurance in Jesus...

When people believe that God loves them and nothing can separate them from that love... A critic may ask - where does the love come from? Is it simply an abstract idea? I think the Christian can point to Jesus in a concrete way and say that He IS the love of God.

In the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, all of the greatest forces in the universe set their sights against Jesus. He could have stopped the rejection, the torture, the death, and the eternal justice for our sins from coming down on his head by simply giving up on us. All he had to do was walk away. But as Jesus Christ was up on the cross nailed, bleeding, dying, and looking down on the people betraying him, and in the greatest act of love in the history of time, HE STAYED.

Bomb after bomb was coming down on Jesus to try and get him to drop us and to separate him from us, but even hell itself was unable to do it. He stayed. He held on to us and became our savior. He died for us. That is how we know that nothing can separate us from the love of God. And this assurance does not have to be an abstract idea for the Christian. Because incredibly God doesn’t just love us unconditionally, he loves us counter-conditionally. He loves you against conditions because of Jesus.

When you see that Jesus Christ never let YOU go no matter what came down on him then the assurance of his love can be personalized. And I think that is the only way that you can know with absolute certainty that no matter you do inside and what happens outside that God has not abandoned you.

If he wouldn’t abandon us on the cross, when hell itself was coming down on him, then he certainly would not abandon us now! If that couldn’t separate us from him do you think you having a bad week is going to do it? Do you think there is anything WE can do when hell couldn’t even destroy his love for us? When bad things are happening to us from all around and you say, ‘I must be abandoned!’ You must remember that if he didn’t abandon you then he is certainly not going to abandon you now. God’s SON was not even spared. And if he wouldn’t spare his son (think of giving up your own son, daughter, nephew, niece, brother, sister) to give us the ultimate gift of community with him and overwhelming love from him, do you think he is really going to let your life go off the rails now? He is not going to deny you anything you need.

If somebody spends a billions dollars on a present do you think he is going to skimp on the wrapping paper?

This is the love you have been looking for all of your life. No friend love, no married love, no popular acclaim, no parental love, no respect at work will give you what this will give you.

Even the best spouse, friends, and parents will die. You will be forsaken. But nothing, neither death, life, angels, principalities, powers, things present, or anything to come, nor height, depth, or anything in all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God, which is in Jesus.

Are you certain of that?