July 18

18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope.

21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to suit, the redemption of our body.

24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

25 But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

26 Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for us we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

27 And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

30 Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

31 What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

33 Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justmeth.

34 Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is ever, at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sleep for the slaughter.

37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.

38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor prince palates, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come.

39 Nor he ghr, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The true Christian must live, not in the things that he sees, and handles,

21 and knows, but in the things which he believes. That is what the apostle means when he says in verse 24, "We are saved by hope." Blessed be the man that, when he cannot bear the present, knows how to leap out of it and revel in a bright future.

"We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." That was Paul's testimony. "Tears dropped from his eyes like rain; every single sense of his body ached with deprivation and persecution; he was looked upon as the off-couring of the world; he was beset by every conceivable mischief; yet still he cried, 'I know that all things work together for good.' How many of you have been led in the same way that Paul was? There is no other tower like the certainty of God's care. It is a fortress that cannot be mined or blown up with powder; that cannot be starved out or taken by storm; that shall remain steadfast, and that shall make us rich."—H. W. Beecher.

In verses 38-39, we have the unseparated. It is not that the force of our love to God is so great that nothing can root it up. That is not the emphasis of the passage; it is that the love of God to us is so great that none of these things will ever move that procuring cause of good in Him. "God loves us so that neither law, nor power, nor earthly experience, nor heavenly adjudications, nor any human witnesses, nor any accusing spirits, nor any thing, shall quench, or cause to glow with one diminished ray the intensity of His love."

Closet Promise.—Whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he.—Prov. xvi. 20.

Tired fathers, weary mothers, when is your happy day coming? Long since you expected it to dawn. It is not here yet, nor will it ever be so long as you do not determine that it shall be to-day. This failure to take comfort as you pass along life's pathway, but ever looking forward for all enjoyment of good, is throwing away the real sweets of life. You may as well attempt to store up summer sunshine to warm in winter, or bottle moonshine for cloudy nights. The real and only true way is to find in the present all the good God gives us. Our whole lives may be filled with joy if we are only willing to learn that in all good work there is profit, in all sorrow are some rays of sunshine, and in all care some compensation. Make the most of to-day.