I was blessed to attend a memorial service for a brother in the Lord. There is so much to say about the service and about a life lived to satisfy God, I wouldn't even know where to begin. My thoughts today center on a Bible verse from a list of verses he loved, in fact one verse- Romans 8:37 graced the front page of the program we were given. Later that evening I spent time reading this verse and the footnotes that accompany it in my Bible. I thought I would share:
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, "For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we have been accounted as sheep for slaughter." But in all these things we more than conquer through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers Nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:35-39
here are the footnotes...
vs37-Because of God's unchanging love for us and the fact that Christ has accomplished everything on our behalf, neither tribulation nor persecution can suppress or defeat us; rather , in all these things we more than overcome and conquer through Him who loved us.
vs.39-The love of God is the source of His eternal salvation. This love is in Christ and has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit (5:5). Nothing can separate us from this love of God (vv.38-39). In God's salvation this love to us has become the love of Christ (vs.35), which does many marvelous things for us through the grace of Christ until God's complete salvation is accomplished in us. These marvelous things provoke God's enemy to attack us with all kinds of sufferings and calamities (vv.35-36). However, because of our response to the love of God in Christ, these attacks have become benefits to us (v.28). Hence, we more than conquer in all our afflictions and calamities (v.37).
This brother in the Lord fought against cancer for about a year, and I thought his choice of scriptures to proclaim spoke volumes, paticularly against the backdrop of his life. He gave up much in worldly standards, to come and serve the Lord.
He wrote-"only His satisfaction can issue in our satisfaction."
Amen