Naked, but blessed

Romans 8: 35, 39b

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribuation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...(nothing) will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is an interesting question...can nakedness separate us from the love of Christ? The even more interesting question is why did he ask a “who” question and give a “what” answer. There is the list of what people would be tempted to think would separate them from God's love. But having things happen to us that are at the least unpleasant to downright life-threatening does not mean that God does not love us. The New Living Translation puts it this way: Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry or cold or in danger or threatened with death? If life is in the pits, does God love us less. If we are shivering in the cold, without clothes to keep us comfortable and warm, does God not care? Is He looking the other way? Is He mad at us? Does the health and wealth gospel mean that if we aren't healthy and wealthy that God has walked away?

This is Paul speaking. He went through it all. Beaten and left for dead. Sitting in prison with nothing to do except witness to guards and sing praises. Shipwrecked on the high seas. Those wet clothes were probably colder than having no clothes at all. And he is the one saying that none of this meant that God didn't love him. It meant just the opposite. He loved him enough to save him and call him to a mission that would change the world. He didn't shield him from the difficulties of life, but proved his commitment to the message of the risen Christ by what he was willing to suffer. No one would go through what he did if he didn't truly believe that God had spoken to him. Without these clothes, they would have died of exposure...this was not just not having the right clothing, but having no covering to preserve their body heat at night. And this is the list of the people approved by God. They were willing for the sake of their love for God to be despised by the world. And the only thing that would cause a person to endure this to the point of death is not believing that God didn't love them, but KNOWING that HE DID.

Who have I in heaven but You? David asks this. When we are totally without the love of the world, we as people of faith look up. We wonder if God is still there...and He reveals Himself to us somehow and lets us know that if God is for us, who can be against us. He clothes us in His love, covering us with the riches of His grace to get us through, even if it means dying and going to Him. Nothing, not even death, separates us from Him. Those things draw us into ever closer dependence on Him, as uncomfortable as it can be at the time.

So who is the who? Satan. He will try, but He will fail. Once we are God's, Satan can treat us like Job, sent armies to defeat us, strip us of everything but God Himself, and not win, because God's love is there regardless of the presence of Satan's hate. Who can separate us from God's love. No one, no thing, no time, no way. We are adopted and housed and clothed and given life. Each of those things that threatens us, God makes provision for in our spirits so we can endure. We can even rejoice in our sufferings when we begin to see that God is there for us and pulling us through.

And the Love is there like the warmest, most beautiful clothing, even when we are naked. That is the promise...the love of God through Christ Jesus.