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What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 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 8:31-39 (ESV)N.T. Wright: , *Paul for Everyone: Romans, Part 1*
The sequence of thought from 8:31 to 8:39 gives the effect of a rushing mighty wind, a great storm of rhetoric designed to sweep the reader off their feet in wonder and gratitude for what God has done and will do. … The point of it all is not to give the Christian a warm, comfortable feeling, but to enable the church to stand firm and go on suffering and working for the gospel in the real world. If God is for us -- and he is -- then let the world do its worst. … Just as Jesus was the representative of Israel in his death and resurrection, so he now represents the whole creation. And when the creator God looks at us, he sees us not as we are in ourselves but in him.
A.W. Tozer: , *The Knowledge of the Holy*
The love of God is one of the great realities of the universe, a pillar upon which the hope of the world rests. But it is a strange and beautiful thing that God's love is not something we can earn or provoke. It does not depend on our worthiness, nor does it waver with our failures. The love of God is uncaused and uninfluenced. He loves because he is love. … This is the kind of love that Paul staggered under in Romans 8 -- a love so fierce and final that neither life nor death, nor heaven nor hell, can break its hold. We do not hold onto God; he holds onto us.
Irenaeus of Lyons: , *Against Heresies* (Book IV, Chapter 20)
In the beginning, did God need man, that he should form Adam? Was it that he might have someone upon whom to bestow his benefits? For not only before Adam, but before all creation, the Word was glorifying his Father, remaining in him, and was himself being glorified by the Father. … He himself indeed did not need our love; for what need has the Lord of the feast? But we needed his love, for the love of God alone makes us blessed. For the glory of God is a living man, and the life of man is the vision of God. For if the revelation of God through creation gives life to all who live upon the earth, much more does the manifestation of the Father through the Word give life to those who see God.
Thomas à Kempis: , *The Imitation of Christ* (Book III, Chapter 56)
Jesus has many lovers of his heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of his cross. He has many who desire consolation, but few who desire tribulation. He finds many companions at his table, but few at his fast. All desire to rejoice with him, few wish to endure anything for him. Many follow Jesus as far as the breaking of bread, but few to the drinking of the cup of his passion. Many reverence his miracles, few follow the shame of his cross. … But they that love Jesus purely for himself, and not for their own self-interest, bless him in every kind of tribulation and anguish of heart as well as in the greatest consolation.
What would change in how you move through today if you truly believed that nothing -- not a failed deal, not a hostile board, not your own worst moment -- could separate you from the love of God?
Epictetus: , *Discourses*, Book I, Chapter 1 (translated by Robert Dobbin)
What are we to do, then? Make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it comes. And how does it come? As God wills. 'What, shall I be the only one to be beheaded now?' Why? Would you have all be beheaded, just for your consolation? Won't you stretch out your neck as Lateranus did at Rome, when Nero ordered his beheading? He stretched out his neck and took the blow -- and when the stroke was too feeble, recoiled a little and then stretched his neck out again. Before that, when Epaphroditus, Nero's freedman, approached him and interrogated him about his part in the conspiracy, he answered: 'If I want to say anything, I'll say it to your master.' What a man, to have such things at hand in a crisis! To be able to say, 'No, not in a single thing does nature fail the man who is skilled in the use of arguments.' … This is the contest in which you are engaged -- an Olympic contest, a matter not to be postponed, a contest that determines whether you are ruined or saved depending on a single day, indeed a single action.
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