Who Shall Separate Us?

Today's reading: Psalms 38-42; Romans 8:18-39

Romans 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

It seems clear by these words written by the apostle Paul that the believers in Rome were suffering under some level of persecution. History reveals that the men and women who followed Jesus were subjected to horrible deaths at the hands of the Roman government often for the pleasure and amusement of the crowds that would gather to watch. Today in our western cultures we can hardly comprehend what they endured because of their faith in Christ. But the main point of Paul's writing this wasn't to provide a scathing rebuke of the authorities who conducted such horrors but instead to remind the believers that no matter what they encountered in this life that nothing could ever come between them and their Lord. It's a wonderful reminder to us that even when we experience the worst of days that Jesus is with us through every trial and difficulty. He will never leave us and nothing can pry us out of His mighty hand.