Love in a hopeless place

Romans 5: 6-8

For when we were still without strength, in due time

Christ died for the ungodly

.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die…But

God demonstrates His own love

towards us, in that

while we were still sinners – CHRIST DIED FOR US.

There are times we all like quiet and other times when we may not mind some noise.  When in the mood for noise, I like my music loud.  R&B, Hip-hop or Pop music that has lots of bass generally suit my cruising speed.  Driving around in recent weeks with my car windows shaking to the bass line of Rihanna’s current top song on the Australian charts, ‘We found love’, Rihanna sings the line, ‘…we found love in a hopeless place…’ She repeats the line over and over and somehow the line stays in my mind as other songs come on the radio. Through the loud music some part of my spirit cannot help but agree with this statement and I can almost hear myself saying, ‘That’s true, we have…’ Ephesians 3:19 …

know the LOVE of CHRIST

which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Romans 8: 33-39

WHO shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.

Who is he who condemns? It is

CHRIST WHO DIED,

and furthermore

is also RISEN

, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

WHO shall separate us from the LOVE OF CHRIST?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers,

nor THINGS PRESENT, nor things to come,

nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the

LOVE of GOD which is IN CHRIST JESUS our LORD.

Genesis 3: 1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman,

‘Has God indeed said,

‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’ From the very beginning of time the devil has been hard at work using the only weapon he has – accusation – to try to get us to believe in one way or the other that we are not loved by God. From Adam and Eve’s day he has told lies trying to assassinate God’s character of pure love towards us, trying to

separate us from the love of God.

(Revelation 12:10) All throughout the Bible and from the passage in Romans 8: 33-39 it is clear God wants us to know beyond any doubt that

NOTHING can separate us from God’s love which is in Christ

. Before the devil stepped into the garden to have a chat with Eve, both she and her husband KNEW they were loved by God. They felt at ease in His presence, walking with Him daily without any

shame

. The devil used the one law God gave Adam and Eve to not eat from the tree that would bring death, to bring

shame

to Adam and Eve upon breaking this law. (Genesis 1:16-17) The devil used his weapon of accusation to attack their knowledge of God’s love for them and for a history-changing moment they believed something that was not true about Him.

Their

shame

from knowing they broke God’s law, made them

afraid

of God and they hid from Him. Romans 8: 33-35

WHO shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.

Who is he who

condemns

? It is

CHRIST WHO DIED,

and furthermore

is also RISEN

, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

WHO shall separate us from the LOVE OF CHRIST?

The gospel of Grace is so simple:

There is therefore NOW NO CONDEMNATION to those who are in Christ Jesus.

(Romans 8:1) but the power of a lie is not in the obvious, but in the subtlety to deceive simple facts or truths. It doesn’t matter how much we know about the Bible, how long we’ve been in church, the Bible is clear that knocking

the lie

on the head that God condemns us – is the key to knowing, experiencing and walking in God’s love for us, so much to the point we can live as happy and as freefrom fear as Adam and Eve did before the fall! The day Jesus died may have seemed like a pretty hopeless day. He was beaten hopelessly, nailed and hung in complete

shame….

But within this ‘seemingly’ hopeless history-changing event

we all FIND LOVE.

God tells us Himself there is no other way to find His love but through the love He showed us by pouring all our sin, shame, sickness, brokenness and poverty on His only Son –

in this way He demonstrates His own love towards us.

(Romans 5:8, Isaiah 53:4-5, 2 Corinthians 8:9) There are daily, potential opportunities for the devil, others or even ourselves to get us to believe, ever so subtlety that we should feel shame and condemned and therefore unloved by God. But the Holy Spirit asks us the rhetorical question, ‘…but who can condemn you, when Jesus HAS already been condemned for you? I HAVE JUSTIFIED you forever - I HAVE made you as RIGHTEOUS as Jesus. (2 Corinthians 5:21)‘See that my Son

HAS taken all your shame so there is NOW no need to feel shame or condemned.

You

WILL FINDhow much I love you

in all your ‘seeming’ hopeless feelings, in all your ‘seeming’ hopeless situations

BY knowing the LOVE OF CHRIST

in His death for you. I love you with an everlasting, unconditional love, I love you! Amen. "