As we come to the end of this series I trust God you have received of the Lord and I pray the message was of some help to you. My brothers and sisters in the Lord it is time to wake up and see that the end of time is approaching and our people are still spreading hate instead of love. War instead of peace. Destruction instead of construction.
Thus it is not simply that God will love us only if we continue to love Him. God will also help us to continue to love Him! He will do everything short of usurping our will to keep us from falling. “O love that wilt not let me go”! Thus while it is true that self can ultimately separate us from God when sin and suffering cannot, it is not as easy as we sometimes think.
John Bunyan wrote in Grace Abounding, “But one day, as I was passing in the field, and that too with some dashes on my conscience, fearing lest yet all was not right, suddenly this sentence fell upon my soul, Thy righteousness is in heaven; and methought withal, I saw, with the eyes of my soul, Jesus Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, is my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was a-doing, God could not say of me, He wants my righteousness, for that was just before Him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse; for my righteousness was Jesus Christ Himself, the same yesterday, and today, and for ever.”
The promise of Romans 8:38 and 39 has meant much to me through the years. I attended a funeral service recently, my faith in God did not waver, but the pain and suffering of that experience was so intense that God did not seem so near. The tragic death caused lots of pain in the congregation, and I said to myself w”what if….” The one thing that stands out in my memory of the funeral service is the Scripture reading. The minister read from Romans 8:31 to 39, closing in a climax of triumphant affirmation and assurance that I can hear even now: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 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” (verses 38, 39).
As I listened to those words, I still could not understand the reason for this tragedy, but my heart was strangely warmed with the presence of the Father and the assurance of His everlasting love. Today I still join with the apostle in this confident assurance that nothing will be able to separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Your servant and brother,
+ Sir Godfrey Gregg
Archbishop and Presiding Prelate
Administrator and Apostolic Head
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