One-minute message: OBE? OBJ!

Frederick (Md.) Church of the Brethren features short messages from pastor Paul Mundey in its weekly e-mail newsletter. Here is last week’s “one-minute message”:
 
A few weeks ago, I included one of my favorite scripture verses in a sermon, Romans 8:37-39: “In all things we are more than conquerors through [the God] who loves...[and wins. For] ...neither death, nor life, neither angels, nor demons...neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, is able to separate us from the love [the power, the strength, the courage, the victory] that is [ours] in Christ Jesus our Lord....”

A key word in these verses is the word separate. It’s a wrenching word which means literally to divide, to put asunder, to tear apart. But that’s exactly what evil does: it tries to divide, to put asunder, to tear apart. Specifically it tries to tear us apart from the triumph of God.

Persons have communicated through abbreviations for eons, most recently in three-letter abbreviations. LOL: laughing out loud. GTG: got to go. TMI: too much information. OBE: overcome by events. That last abbreviation, in particular, registers, for we are OBE, overcome by events.

And so awhile back, I decided to do something about it; to invent my own abbreviation: OBJ: overcome by Jesus! For we do live in an OBE world, but we’re called to be an OBJ people--overcome not by events, but by Jesus, who ultimately overcomes all! For nothing in “all creation is able to separate us from...[His] love [and power] (Romans 8:37-39).

-- Pastor Paul Mundey serves Frederick (Md.) Church of the Brethren. Read the reflection and view the church newsletter at http://bbemaildelivery.com/bbext/?p=land&id=D384171E736B0FC0E040730A07096402 .

Source: 1/24/2013 Newsline