The word for this week is "separate". We'll be looking at Romans 8:35-39:
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. KJV
"Shall separate" is the Greek word "chorizo". Strong's Concordance says: to place room between, to part, to go away. Thayer's Greek Lexicon says: to divide, to put asunder, to go away. Vine's Expository Dictionary says: to separate oneself, to depart. Next to the Truth found in 2 Corinthians 5, that we are made completely new creations at the New Birth, this Truth is the most exciting and empowering! We really are who God says that we are, even though we sometimes don't look or act like it. We really can do what God says that we can, even when we make mistakes. Nothing that the enemy can do, no trick or trap or scheme or strategy, can ever actually harm us in any lasting way. Jesus always gives us a way of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13) and restores us right back to where we were before we stumbled! There is such freedom in knowing that we are in a permanent relationship with the God of the universe and that nothing can ever change that relationship. I will, for all of eternity, be a child of the living God! Nothing that I do or anyone else does can ever cause me to be 'unborn again'! All I ever have to do when I cause what seems to be a separation, by my choices, is to change my thinking to agree with God (repent). The deeper that we can get this Truth inside of us, the less time satan will ever be able to keep us out of 'fellowship' with the Lord! In His presence and in fellowship with Him is where we find the answers to every question and the solution to every problem! It's no wonder that the enemy tries to get us to believe the opposite! The very best thing that you and Kristine can instill in your beautiful little ladies, beside the Truth that they can do anything they set their hearts to, is that no one can ever take them out of God's hands and His heart! There is no greater LOVE and no greater freedom than this! Here is a new song by Hillsong Young and Free called "More of You":
Love and Shalom from the Swoveys!
