“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.” These are the words that Christ-loving parents long to hear their children say. We who have tasted of the love of Christ want so badly for our children to taste it, too.
When our kids are bullied by their peers, when they feel embarrassed by their mistakes, when they stray down dangerous paths that lead to destruction, we desperately want them to know the love of Christ. We know how sweet his love is and how powerfully it can transform our children’s hearts and lives.
But does Christ have enough love to go around for us parents, too? Yes, we have experienced his love in the past, but where is that love when we fail our children, when we are hurt, and when we fall short of God’s commands?
In order to be the most effective witnesses to our children of the endless love of Jesus Christ, we must be the first ones to run to the well of the living, loving water of Jesus Christ. Just as it is not our children’s natural instinct to run to the Lord in their brokenness to savor his love, neither is it our natural instinct to run to the Lord in our brokenness to savor his love. Moms and dads, we must train ourselves to remember that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Christ died for our past, present, and future parenting failures, and he rose again to hold us securely in his justifying love. Christ’s love forever flows to revive us from hopeless stupors, to forgive us our sins, to purify us from unrighteousness, and to keep us believing that the streams of Christ’s love will never dry up.
Parents, Romans 8:35-39 assures us that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Drink it in:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, ‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
No person, no power, and no circumstance shall (v. 35) or is able to (v. 39) separate you from the love of Christ. Breathe in God’s love for you.
No person shall separate you from the love of Christ.
The jabs that your child takes at you with his/her words will not separate you from the love of Christ. Your child’s infatuation with someone other than you will not separate you from the love of Christ. Neither a stress-inducing spouse, nor a belligerent ex, nor a put-together peer can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
No power shall separate you from the love of Christ.
Parenting is spiritual warfare. We are fighting against spiritual beings, sinful flesh, and the lost world in which we live. Even when it appears like we have lost the war for our children’s hearts, God reminds us that right now, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Spiritual powers that war against our children and our families are not greater than the love of Jesus Christ. The governments and rulers of the world who espouse non-biblical philosophies and policies cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Every spiritual and earthly power that is not Christ is subordinate to Christ. Nothing shall separate you from the love of the all-powerful triune God!
No circumstance shall separate you from the love of Christ.
Hardships and terrible stress can’t take you from God’s love. Lack of money, food, and new clothes can’t rob you of God’s love. Even when your child is physically and emotionally distant from you, God’s love is with you. Your insecurities, your regrets, your shame, your parenting fails cannot separate you from Christ’s love. Neither marital strife, nor divorce, nor a mixed family, nor singleness will ever take Christ’s love away from you. Parenting children with strange quirks, with special needs, with self-harming behaviors, with anxiety and depression, and with chronic illnesses shall never separate you from the love of Christ. Being beat up and persecuted for your faith won’t separate you from God’s love. Nothing in the present and nothing that is to come—even death itself—can or will separate you from the love of Jesus Christ!
Parents, drink in these soul-satisfying lyrics:
“When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end to all my sin
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free
For God the Just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.”
Mom and Dad, just as the Lord Jesus’ atoning work on the cross is more than sufficient to save you forever, so also the Lord Jesus’ love for you is ever present, ever full, and ever available to you. Rejoice, because nothing shall separate you from the love of Christ!
Join us for parenting workshops at Rooted 2024 in Dallas, Texas, October 24-26!
