Becoming Whole

0:00Here's today's in-touch devotion. Today's scripture reading is Romans 8, verses 33 through 39. Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died. Yes, rather, who was raised. Who is at the right hand of God. Who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation or distress? Or persecution or famine? Or nakedness or peril or sword? Just as it is written. For your sake, we are being put to death all day long. We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things, we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,

1:01nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Modern society has many solutions for unhappiness, but worldly happiness will inevitably falter. Only God's transforming power can change someone with a broken spirit and to a content Christ's follower who understands his or her own value. To find wholeness, a person must start by receiving Jesus as Savior. For that to occur, the sin that stands between Him and God has to be wiped away. Then, with a Holy Spirit's strength, he'll be able to find the courage to confront past disappointments, hurts, and sins that perhaps left him feeling unworthy. Someone with a sense of wholeness feels satisfied with life.

2:01Hardship is inevitable in this world, but it doesn't devastate the born-again believer. Why? Because he knows God is promised to work everything out for his good. In contrast, someone who feels fragmented or empty often has the opposite experience. He may look okay on the outside while struggling within. This can even be the case with Christians who haven't learned to experience God's love fully. The Lord can and will make His love known to believers who ask, and through it comes the wholeness that they have been seeking.