Romans 8: A Story of God's Love and Grace

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 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." (Romans 8:35, 37, and 39)

This set of verses written by Paul to the Romans (and to each of us) is extremely powerful. Its main message is that nothing can separate you from God's love. If you make a mistake, no matter how bad it is, God's love will still be there for you. It is something that will always be there for you and that you do not have to earn. Each of us is a spirit child of God and He is our father and loves us.

In my New Testament class this week, my professor used an analogy to our personal lives of Christ's love and grace. The analogy was to think of your children or, if this doesn't apply, think of your relationship with your parents. Sometimes parents ask their children to do things, such as chores around the house. If the child asked to do the chore is lazy or rebels and does not complete the task, it does not mean that they are not the parents' children. As my professor phrased it, even if the child did do the job, his father doesn't say, "Good work Johnny, if you keep this up, someday you will be my son." That would be ridiculous, because he is already the father's son.

Likewise, we are all God's children-we don't have to earn being a child of God. We don't even have to earn God's love or work to keep it. It is a constant and will be there for us always. If God didn't love us, why else would He send his only begotten son to suffer and die for each of us so we could have the chance of returning to be with Him?

And we don't have to earn the grace that was given to us through Christ's atonement either. We  are sufficient for his grace. If you look up the words "earn" and "deserve" in the topical guide of the Bible, it won't be there. This is because nothing you can do will earn you Christ's grace or help you to deserve it. Like God's love, it is there for you always.

I'll just end with this quote by Dieter F. Uchtdorf that pretty much sums everything up:

“Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God's love encompasses us completely. ... He loves every one of us, even those who are flawed, rejected, awkward, sorrowful, or broken.”