August 30 – From Him, There Is No Separation

Hope for Today: A Daily Devotion from Reasons for Hope*Jesus

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“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?… Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Romans 8:35, 37

• Stars shine brightest in the darkest night.
• Grapes come not to the proof until they come to the press.
• Spices smell best when bruised.
• Young trees root the faster for being shaken.
• Gold looks brighter for scouring.

Such is the condition of all God’s children. They are most triumphant when most tempted; most glorious when most afflicted; most in the favor of God when least in man’s and least in their own. As their conflicts, such are their conquests; as their tribulations, such their triumphs.

They live best in the furnace of persecution — so that heavy afflictions are the best benefactors to heavenly affections; and where afflictions hang heaviest, corruptions hang loosest; and grace that is hidden in nature, as sweet water in rose leaves, is then most fragrant when the fire of affliction is put under to distill it out.

Rejoice, believer, in this glorious truth — nothing can separate you from Jesus. Your greatest trials will be overruled for your good and may often be numbered among your choicest mercies. They only wean you from the world, endear a throne of grace, and make you cleave closer to your Savior. In Him there is no condemnation; from Him, there is no separation.

Devotion by Karl Heinrich von Bogatzky (1690—1774)