Daily Devotional • April 4
A Reading from Romans 8:28-39
28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all day long;
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 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.
Meditation
Are the last two verses of our passage not a beautiful and perfect summation of the narrative of our scriptures? The whole of the Bible testifies to God’s refusal to allow any chasm, any separation, between his creation and himself. While those of us who live in North America certainly do not often face persecution for our faith, or famine, or the sword, we certainly do face the challenge of “things present and things to come.”
In every age there are “things present” that seek to widen the chasm between us and God. Our great-grandparents faced a global war which shattered our notions about ourselves and the goodness of our human family. Their children faced Vietnam, which shattered notions about the goodness of our very nation. And we today face the challenge of being made the product and the consumer and being given few options other than those two. Every generation has had their chasm set, and every generation has found God’s dissatisfaction with that chasm.
God wills that we be near him, God wills that he be with us, not even the disobedience and idolatry of the Israelites convinced God to break his covenant with them. How much more petty are those things that seek to dig a chasm between us and God today? Our idolatry is different—no more golden calves. And yet idolatry persists nonetheless, less obviously, yet more insidiously. God will do with them what he has always done, tear them down, and bridge the chasm that we and the world have dug between us and them.
The Rev. Samuel Cripps is the rector of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist in Wausau, Wisconsin.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
Episcopal Church of St. Peter & St. Paul, Marietta, Georgia
The Diocese of Maseno South The Anglican Church of Kenya
The Rev. Samuel Cripps is the rector of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist in Wausau, Wisconsin.
