7.1 On The Richter Scale. Series

Romans 8:37-39

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,d neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

As I have traveled around dropping in on our folks, and phoning and sorry if I didn’t manage to make it to you, so far its been a busy week, I’ve enjoyed sharing these few verses, especially the wee bit that reads “nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.

That includes earth quakes, the earthquake that woke us all at 04.35 am on Saturday morning was a shocker.

7.1 on the Richter scale is the sort that impresses the geological fraternity, there’s only about eighteen or so of the seven plus on the Richter scale worldwide every year.

I tried to get under about two inches of bed at the time of the big one and a we had number of breakages, and toppled book cases, i’ll admit it was a frightening experience. Rochelle, Terry and I sat through the aftershocks (which I suppose are now becoming a bit old hat) till day light.

We were surprised at the amount of damage to the central city, the damage to our Corps building being negligible and quarters being minimal. While we have all probably lost small ornaments, I know some of you have had a reasonable amount of damage to your homes.

We live very much in the here and now, in the physical as well as in the spiritual. It is extremely disconcerting when the whole house shakes, when we hear that an unknown fault that has not been active for 16000 years has suddenly decides to make its presence felt.

Do we despair and wonder what is around the corner, (another after shock occurred as I typed that line), or do we put our faith in God?

Our God who can take a hard nosed, legalistic, enemy of Christ Jesus, in a blinding experience; who having been brought to faith and was able to write those words. This man Paul was willing to suffer, beatings, stoning, be left for dead, imprisoned (incidentally he was freed on one occasion by an earthquake) and he went through some of these things on more than one occasion.

Paul gave his life over to Jesus, and was able to say these things about the love of God and how nothing could separate him from that love; as his life was fully surrendered, he had seen the Christ; he was blinded by the glory of his presence, and then the scales fell from his eyes. He found release from his past as, as he accepted the gift of God’s grace; that release his past and the undeserved favor that came through Jesus.

Trusting in God we need not fear, because nothing, nothing can separate us from his love.

Our faith is for today and it is eternal, because with Paul we can say that nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Let us worship our King!