More than Conquerors

 

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39 ESV).

 

It seems to me that we often stop celebrating Christ’s resurrection too soon. Just two weeks ago we celebrated Easter. Many of us sang, or even shouted, with excitement, “Up from the grave he arose, with a mighty triumph o’er his foes,” and, “Christ the Lord is risen today! Alleluia!”

 

That leads me to a very important question: What are we excited about today? As we have seen in earlier devotionals, the book of Romans includes lots of life-giving truths. It’s also a letter in which Paul often breaks into a doxology— a hymn of praise to God. Our reading today from Romans 8 is an example. Paul piles reason upon reason for our rejoicing: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” And “who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” No one! “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” And we remember this is all based on Christ’s triumph over sin, death, and the grave for us.

 

I have often seen it written that “It is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life.” I wonder if that ought to motivate us to continue our rejoicing throughout the week. If the bible is true and clearly declares that nothing can separate us from the love of God shown in the risen Jesus, then how can we stop rejoicing? How can we keep from singing every day?

 

I’m often reminded how excited I can get when my favorite team walks off the field of play with a victory and how down I feel when they fall short. Listen… we will never lose this game called life when we belong to Jesus. He had won the final victory and NOTHING can separate us from that. We are more than conquerors in the greatest contest of all time! Now we need to act like it!