More Than A Conqueror

ROMANS 8:35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor 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.

Did you ever feel unloved? I mean, even though you know a certain person in your life loves you, sometimes you just feel unloved by that person. You can’t understand why in the world he/she would let you go thru something like you are going thru.....don’t you love me? This text says "For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter" and yet also says "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us’......how can that be? How are we "more than conquerors" when we are SO beaten down and things are going so terribly wrong for us?

Nanci and I went to a movie Fri nite.....the first time we have ever done that....to see a christian produced film called "Facing the Giants." I wasn’t sure what to expect frankly, because I had been reading about this film for a while It was produced and written and filmed by a church in Georgia....the lead actor is actually an assoc. Pastor of that church. I mention it only because I believe that if us christians are gonna go see a movie, we need to go see christian based movies and support them, because if we don’t, pretty soon there won’t be any to see. The major studios wouldn’t touch this one and it had to be privately financed. We highly recommend it... The main thing it helped bring home to us is this simple message found in Mark 10:27 Looking at them, Jesus said, “With people it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God.”

Have you ever been "behind the eight-ball" in your life. You look around and see that your life isn’t quite as you had planned for it to be. Think back to when you were just 17 or 18 yrs old and you had high expectations for your life. Most of us are not any where near where we imagined ourselves to be, are we? Maybe you freamed of being a Dr or a lawyer (sorry) or even an astronaut. Yet, here we are, usually as a consequence of our own poor choices, trying to find our way thru this life on earth.

Personally, I never dreamed that I would end up being a Pastor. I thought when I was around 14 that God might have called me to preach, but certainly not be a Pastor! I wanted to be an evangelist! That’s it, tell ’em the way it is and then leave their pastor to deal with it! Life takes funny turns, doesn’t it? It took me a long time to get back to God and His calling on my life. Lotta bad choices and decisions. Now that Nanci and I are pastors, I wouldn’t ever imagine us doing anything else but this right here. We love the work God has called us to, but it just goes to show "all things are possible with God.” Ask any of my old high school friends.(NOT)

Back in our original text, it says we are more than conquerors . do you feel like YOU are that? How can we feel like more than conquerors if things aren’t always going just right. Usually we feel like we are anything BUT conquerors. But the secret is found in the rest of our text...38For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39Nor 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. .PRAISE GOD!

We CANNOT be defeated as long as we are not seperated from the love of God....and so what then can seperate us? Not even death! There is one thing we need to look closely at...nor any other creature. What does that mean, other creature? Nothing can seperate us from Gods love except........us. When we withdraw from God and look to our own selves to try to correct the trials we are facing....when we turn away from what we KNOW to be right......when we stop attending church because we are in the middle of a lot of trouble.....that’s when we are pushing God out of our lives. And That’s the time we should be seeking MORE of Him in our lives!