Daily Devotional 9.30.11

The Talisman of Victory

“In all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us.” (Romans 8:37)

Can anything separate me from the love of Christ? This was the only question that St. Paul felt worth consideration. In this paragraph he takes the extreme conditions of being, and carefully investigates them, knowing that they include all between. First, he interrogates Existence–“death and life”; next, created Intelligences–“Angels, principalities, and powers”; next, the extremes of Time–“things present, things to come”; next, of Space—“height and depth”; lastly, the created Universe –“any other creature.” Each of these extremes is passed in review. He is like a man proving every link of the chain in which he is going to swing out over the abyss. Carefully and fervently he has tested all, and is satisfied that none of them can cut him off from the love of God.

We strangely misjudge and mistrust the Love of God our Father, and think that our distresses and sufferings, our sins and failures, may make Him love us less. But in the home, it is not the troop of sturdy children that engross the mother’s care so much as the puny feeble life, that lies in the cot, unable to help itself and reciprocate her love. And in the world, death and pain, disease and sorrow, sin and failure, so far from separating us from God’s love, bind us closer.

Oh blessed Love! that comes down to us from the heart of Jesus, the essence of the eternal love of God–nothing can ever staunch, exhaust, intercept it. It is not our love to Him, but His to us, and since nothing can separate us from the love of God, He will go on loving us for ever, and pouring into us the entire fullness of His life and glory. Whatever our difficulties, whatever our weakness and infirmity, we shall be kept steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord; gaining by our losses, succeeding by our failures, triumphing in our defeats, and ever more than conquerors through Him that loved us.

Devotional Prayer

Dear Lord, Father in heaven hear my prayer.

Through my life, through my sorrows, and through my sinning, my Lord, suffice me. Suffice me in my day, that I may feel your love as I face the many challenges which lay before me. Soften my path, harden my faith, and grant me the wisdom to abide in your teachings.

I pray this to you in Jesus name, Amen.