23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am speaking as if I were out of my mind.) I am so much more: in harder labor, in more imprisonments, in worse beatings, in frequent danger of death.

25 Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea;

26 on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers;

27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.

— 2 Corinthians 11:23, 25-27

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

36 As it is written, “For Your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,

39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

— Romans 8:35-39

Thoughts on Today’s Reading

Grace, mercy and love from Christ to you.

Paul’s words in Romans 8 assure us that nothing can shake this foundation, not our weaknesses, not our circumstances, not even the forces of darkness in the world that constantly shifts and changes where people and things may fail. God‘s love remain steady. There are surely a lot of things that might seem capable of separating us from God‘s love, such as death, life, angels, demons, the present, the future, powers, height, deaths, but Paul assures us that none of them can by doing so.

Paul covers every possible angle, and every imaginable threat to prove that absolutely nothing can stand between us and the love of God in Christ. Pains are powerless in the face of God‘s love. This isn’t just a comforting thought. It’s a reality that Paul lived and died. Paul’s confidence in God‘s love wasn’t just a theological belief. It was his daily source of strength. He endured persecution, imprisonment, hardship, and eventually his faith in God‘s love gave him all the courage to face every trial with confidence, knowing that he was held by a love that would never let him go.