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Romans 8:35
35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
Can anything that happens to us on this earth separate us from the love of Christ? The answer is no, no, no! This momentary affliction that we experience during our earthly life in Christ is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory (v.18, 2 Cor. 4:17-18). Every bit of suffering is being used for our good (v.28). And yet while our enemies cannot condemn us (v.34), they may indeed kill us. It may even be that Satan is given authority by God to go so far as to murder us (Rev. 2:8-11). But God's love in Christ is never more real than in our weakest moments; He will see us through every step of faith for our good until we come to be in His glorious presence. Jesus says to us, "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt. 10:28). It is the love of Christ, abundantly poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, that will see us through all things and provide us strength in our weakest moments so that we will persevere to the end in the hope of the Gospel (see Colossians 1:21-23).
Bookmarked 6 months ago.

Romans 8:36
36As it is written:“For your sake we face death all day long;we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”Psalm 44:22
The enemies of God cannot assault God Himself, although Satan tempted Jesus and blinded men in order to crucify the Son of God. Rather, the Enemy seeks to grieve God and glorify sin as the human race is led into further and further corruption, lawlessness, and rebellion. In response to this, we have a beautiful and powerful truth that makes demons shudder -- Christ came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). The adversary knows that his time is short (Revelation 12:12) and so we are told that the inhabitants of the earth should mourn. The reason? We will experience Satan's wrath and fury. However meager Satan's power is when compared to the all-saving power of Christ in us, it is still a power that God allows to work in this present age. Satan may kill us, and certainly has targeted every Christian as an object of destruction (1 Peter 5:8). But all we must do is be sober-minded and watchful, as Peter says. Our God is a great shield and His Spirit casts away all darkness. What a victory we have in Jesus our Lord, before whom demons shudder! He will destroy God's enemies with the breath of his mouth (Isaiah 11:4, 2 Thessalonians 2:8), and will bring us finally to Himself forever and ever. Jesus has given us the word: "I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matthew 16:18-19).
Bookmarked 6 months ago.

Romans 8:37
37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
In every bit of suffering, in every trial, in every part of life in which we share in Christ's sufferings, we who live by faith in the Son of God are 'more than conquerors'--we are victors! Not because of our strength, wisdom, or giftedness; for we know that we must give these up before we can clothe ourselves with Christ. We are victors only because Jesus loved and gave himself up for the Church, His Bride, "so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish" (Ephesians 5:25-27). If we have been sealed by the Holy Spirit -- if Christ's loved has been poured into our hearts by that same Spirit -- then we are assured that He will finish the good work that He began in us by that same Spirit (Philippians 1:6). In the midst of describing the great suffering and hardship he endured in Asia, Paul rejoiced before the Corinthians because of this sustaining love of Christ: "But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere" (2 Corinthians 2:14). But if we will not suffer for the sake of the Gospel and will not give up our lives for the sake of knowing Christ, we will never understand this verse or even this chapter. Holy Spirit, come, and fill the hearts of Your faithful!
Bookmarked 7 months ago.

Romans 8:28
More Than Conquerors
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,Some manuscripts And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God whoOr works together with those who love him to bring about what is good–with those who have been called according to his purpose.
Suffering for the Christian is to be understood not only in light of eternity, but also in light of an eternal and omnipotent God. The sole source of our hope comes from our union with God through the Holy Spirit, and Paul has focused on this important doctrine all throughout the chapter. The Spirit is actively leading us away from sin and toward holiness, life, and peace by renewing our minds (vv.5-6); He is assuring us of our new identity as adopted children of God (v. 16); and He is continually interceding for us such that God is intimately and closely involved with our everyday struggles, desires, and needs (vv. 26-27). This Spirit-leading was shown most clearly in Jesus's earthly life and ministry, who suffered because he would not be mastered by sin, Satan, or the world; and yet now Jesus reigns as King of Kings! Paul has given us a wide-angle view of God's sovereign plan to ensure our complete redemption, even working for our good in the suffering that will come upon us because of our identification with our Lord. But God is not blind to this! Indeed, we can know very little of what awaits us, how we will respond or survive the trials of life. How humbling and amazing to think that God called us to enter the path of life with every aspect already covered, even leading us through the worst suffering and gravest temptations by the power of the Spirit of Christ reviving us day by day. Praise God in His wisdom and for His perfect provision!
Bookmarked 8 months ago.

Romans 8:26
26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
In the midst of trials, sufferings, afflictions, confusion, or spiritual battle, Paul reminds us that we are experiencing something similar to birth pains as we groan for the glory that is wrought within us by the Holy Spirit. We have a great treasure, as it were, in a jar of clay (2 Cor. 4:7). In light of this, we will never know how to pray as we should -- our knowledge is too limited and our faith still only a mustard seed. And in the midst of especially bewildering and hard times, we may not know how to pray at all. Paul offers comfort, then, in that the divine Comforter whom God has given us as a deposit of our future inheritance is actually guarding us in Christ as we pray and present our requests to God (see also Philippians 4:4-7). He presents our deepest needs to the Father with the full knowledge that only God could have, as Paul teaches in the next few verses. The Spirit is indeed praying for us as the guard of our souls and working in us those prayerful groans which are fragrant offerings to God our Father.
Bookmarked 9 months ago.

Romans 8:24
24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has?
What is our guiding hope, the unseen reality that our faith is directed at? It is simply and beautifully this -- eternal life with Christ through the promised resurrection. This shows in Paul's description of his own salvation in Philippians 3, as he talks about how Christ 'had made him his own'. Paul lost all that he had known in coming to this knowledge of Christ, and all of his life's purpose was directed toward the end of knowing Jesus and the fellowship of His suffering, even to the point of imminent execution. What is the ending to this great passage about enduring all of these things? "...that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." Here, too, Paul has been talking about suffering and now he reminds them that there is a greater purpose to their living and dying for Christ which will only be clear in the coming age. For now we are to live faithfully for this unseen hope, which looks like foolishness and a giving-away of everything precious to those living under the light of the various hopes of the world. As John says, 'what we will be has not yet appeared...' (1 John 3:2).
Bookmarked 10 months ago.

Romans 8:17
17Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and co–heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Our hope isn't ultimately for this world. Instead, our hope is to be with God in full release from the world's hatred toward Him, our own sinfulness, and Satan's deceitful and oppressive tactics. But we have a battle to wage before we arrive at heaven's glory, and Paul is clear in stating that we *must* suffer with Jesus if we are to be glorified with Him. Put another way, Paul is saying that life in the Spirit -- in Christ -- looks much the same as Jesus's life. We should re-read the Gospels, Acts, the Old Testament, even biographies of the saints, so that we may see how real life in the Spirit plays out. Perhaps most of all, we need communion with the Spirit and fellowship with believers who walk in Spirit and Truth, through whom God will equip us for the long journey. Doesn't sound worth it? Read the Beatitudes (Matthew 5, Luke 6), or any of Jesus's sayings about the cost of discipleship (i.e. Luke 14) -- read Paul's remarks in Philippians 3:7-16. If we strive to "hold true to what we have attained" the end result is that we will walk humbly, faithfully, and justly with our God.
Bookmarked 10 months ago.

Romans 8:18
Future Glory
18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Look at Jesus's life on this earth -- our Lord was loved by many but misunderstood by most, criticized by certain groups (the religious or those in power), and ultimately murdered by the people He had created. How much has sin infected human hearts since the Fall, that we would crucify our God and Savior! Paul assumes that we will suffer in this life, as do all of the other New Testament writers. And so we shouldn't be naive about the world's ways and the hearts of the wicked; we should be concerned with the Risen Savior, as Hebrews 2:9-18 says. Hope is one of the most prominent themes of the New Testament, and we should seek insight from God in understanding the deep mystery of the Christian hope and how great our Blessed Hope, Jesus, truly is. Then we will be able to understand Paul's assertion that suffering doesn't compare to glory -- yes, even in the midst of great suffering (as Paul himself faced; see 2 Cor. 11:16-33).
Bookmarked 10 months ago.

2 Corinthians 1:8-9
8We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.
The result of the 'affliction' was that Paul and his companions had come to think that God himself had given them up, and Paul seems to be confessing that they began to believe it. But the ultimate explanation and comfort throughout this experience where God's protection had seemingly ceased is found in God's granting of power through their faith and hope. Paul knew of resurrection because of his faith in Christ--about its power for life now in the hardest of trials, and in its building up of hope in the darkest situations.
Bookmarked about 1 year ago.

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