More Than Conquerers

At our Jr. High church group way back in the early 90's, (dang, that sounds old) we sang a melancholy song with these lyrics:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Shall tribulation or distress, shall persecution, famine or nakedness...
Neither peril or sword
From the love of the Lord."

Tribulation? Famine? Nakedness? (I always snickered when we got to that part of the line.) Those are uncommon words to your run of the mill 12 year old. I guess it was the unusualness of the song that stuck with me all of these years. Now, as a 32 year old (yup, old age confirmed) I can fully appreciate these words written by the apostle Paul.

Going into the Bible and reading the passage from which the song lyrics originated, I found that it is a remarkable commitment made by God through Jesus. It speaks of His everlasting love for us and that there is absolutely nothing that can separate us from that. And if that is the kind of commitment He makes to us, I believe we should, in turn, make that kind of commitment to others.

"Who shall separate us?" - Let's start off the new year, 2012, by simply being there for one another. Through tribulations, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, anything that is thrown at us, let's stick together. It's not going to be easy. If there's one certainty, it is that it will be a struggle. It will take a huge amount of grace. But in the end, it will build us as a people. The scripture goes on to say, in all these things, we are more than conquerers. Conquering is simply winning the battle. We are more than that. We are here to make the world better than how it was when we got here. That would make us restorers.

If 2011 was about winning, let's make 2012 about restoring. Let's do it together.