Romans 8:31

Are there some Bible verses that really jump out at you and make you want to read them again and again and chew on them for awhile? I fell in love with the book of Romans in college, but in the last year or so, Romans 8:31 really jumped out at me. This week it came up twice at church AND I happened to be the one reading both times. On Wednesday morning, it was the reading at Morning Prayer which I sometimes pray with a group at church. Yesterday, it was the first reading at Mass, and I was lectoring. I don't fully understand it, but I find it so beautiful and moving... gotta love St. Paul!

Here's the quote. The Morning Prayer reading included just the second half or so...

What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him? Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us. Who will condemn? It is Christ Jesus who died, rather, was raised, who also is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.

What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword? As it is written:

“For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers,nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.