Overwhelmingly Conquer

In my quiet time this morning, I reread Romans 8:37. It arrested me. It says, "But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us." Y'know, that's not a very 'big' verse, but it is PACKED.

First of all, we need to look back at what the 'all these things' are. In verse 35, Paul says, "Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" These are things most American believers know little about. These are things that are so much more intense than the things we face on a daily or weekly basis. Yet, they were not just coming through those experiences by the skin of their teeth. They were, according to Paul, OVERWHELMINGLY CONQUERING. Can we truly grasp the depth of this? I don't think I can. I do know some of the horrific things some of our brethren suffer in other lands because of their faith in Jesus Christ. I know of some of the things Nero did to the believers in his day. They were things no human being should ever inflict upon another human being, just as other atrocities today that are being committed.

Yet, do I/we overwhelmingly conquer in all these things we go through? Do we even 'just conquer' in these things? Do we consult with Him BEFORE we fret and worry about these things? For, if we did, we could just skip the worrying and fretting part. Right? When we lose our jobs, do we overwhelmingly conquer? When we're rushing to get somewhere and run into new construction (which seems to be at least a weekly occurrence in Tulsa these days), do we overwhelmingly conquer? That's just part of my list. What's on your list? Are you conquering overwhelmingly? I long to, but I'm not there yet. I'm not bad, really, on the joblessness, but the traffic seems to strip me of my conqueror status every time.

But, again, what a verse. What a passage. As The Bible Knowledge Commentary says, "These things--stated in increasing intensity--do not separate Christians from Christ; instead they are part of the "all things" (Rom 8:28) God uses to bring them to conformity to His Son." So, my dear friends, if our brethren, past and present, can overwhelmingly conquer in such intense situations, may WE OVERWHELMINGLY CONQUER in the things that come our way, whether large or small, whether traffic or the death of a loved one. May we allow this verse to be branded upon our hearts and minds, also remembering the rest of the verse...through Him who loved us.