I am a fairly relaxed kind of guy. My wife on the other hand is more of a daredevil. She likes pushing the limits. She would be totally comfortable skydiving. I, on the other hand, don't need that in my life. She loves roller coasters. I, on the other hand, do not need to ever be on one.

But, because I love my wife, I have gone on roller coasters with her before. She was cheering with her hands up in the air. I was holding on for dear life. I don't get it. What is so fun about riding in a little car up a very steep hill, and then dropping 300 feet at 92 mph? My heart was pounding. I was sweating out of every pore in my body. It felt like a free fall.

Sometimes life can be just like that. It can seem like your falling 300 feet straight down at 92 mph. Your parents are on your case because of the friends you are hanging out with. Your boss tells you that you are no longer needed at work. Your body seems to be riddled with one ailment after another.

Then there is that gnawing feeling of guilt from the fight you had with your parents or with your spouse. Your conscience is bothering you because you told yourself that you would go to church and Bible study more or that you would pray more and you have not done it. With all of this, we can definitely feel like losers. We can wonder if God really loves us - if God could love us.

Does God love you? Everything and everyone around us is tells us "no." That starts inside of you. Have you assessed your life lately? Have you evaluated your marriage, your spiritual life, your parenting? We don't like to do this. We avoid this type of analysis because we know exactly what the data tells us. We have no interest in rehashing the guilt and failures of our lives. And so we tend to ignore these things. Sin makes us into cowards.

Sin does more than that though. It separates us from God. Sin brings many things to our lives here on earth - trouble, hardship, pain, loneliness, depression. And don't we deserve these things because of our sinfulness? Yes, we do.

Does that mean that God does not love us? That is the question that Paul asked. "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?" Does God love us? Our hearts says, "No, he couldn't." Paul answered that question by quoting the Psalms. "For your sake we face death all day long, we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."

In Paul's day, hundreds of sheep were slaughtered every day in the Temple. There were specific sheep that were used for this. They had one purpose in life - to be sacrificed.

Is that all that we are - sheep to be slaughtered? Is your life filled with troubles? Have you been betrayed lately by a friend? Have you been separated from your family because of your faith? Have you been suffering under pain or illness?

You might think that God does not care about you. That is what the devil, the world, and conscience would tell us. And now here is a verse from God that tells us that we are nothing but sheep to be slaughtered. Is that all that we are good for? Are we just sacrificial sheep? Does God really love us?

God answers all those questions with a definite, "Yes!" If you look back at that verse, you will notice it begins with, "For your sake..." Those sheep may not have had much of a life, but they had a wonderful purpose - to glorify God. Our lives are the same.

Survivor continues to be one of the most popular shows on TV. I guess people watch it because they dream of being a survivor. Is that all there is to life - just to survive? Isaac Asimove wrote: "As far as I can see there is no purpose to life." Is there no purpose to our existence except to just survive?

"For your sake" the Psalmist wrote. Our lives are lived FOR God. All the troubles, trials, and pain that we face bring God glory. When God delivers us, it shows his eternal love for us. Paul wrote, "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." More than just survive, we are conquerors. And more than conquer, we over-conquer. We don't just survive. We win heaven. And we don't just win heaven, we have victory right now. Right now we are winners in the world.

Why? Because of the love of God. And the love of God is shown to us through the love of his Son, Jesus Christ. The love of Christ is shown to us in the cross. Look up now. See the love of Christ before you. Because of the cross, nothing will separate us from God's love. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Paul covered it all. Every circumstance in life all the way to death, all powers - earthly and hellish, even all space - depths to heights - nothing in all the world can separate us from God's love in Christ.

Look again at the cross of Christ. Look at the blood, the beatings, the spitting, the injustice, the nails, the cross. See the great love for you. By Jesus' life, death, and resurrection Jesus has established a connection of love that can never be broken. He tied you to himself with baptism and now nothing can break that cord of love.

The one thing people want in life is security. I think that is why roller coasters scare me so much. I don't feel secure at all. In life, though, we hang our security on some pretty thin ropes. We hang it on health, but that fails us all the time. We hang our security on money, but that can disappear in a heartbeat. We hang our security on our predictable routines, but when change comes, as it always does, our security is shattered. We hang our security on friends, but they let us down.

The great problem many Christians have is that they don't believe God truly loves them. The feel this way because they know that they don't deserve God's love. How can a perfect God love those who are sinners? It can be hard for us to believe that God loves us. But that is exactly what we are to believe. Believe that God loves you.

In spite of what the world says and your conscience says and everything around you says, God says he loves you with an everlasting love. Believe God over everyone and everything else. Say with Paul, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Life may seem like you are riding a roller coaster at times with more downs than ups. But always remember that God has you in his grace. He has bound you to himself with a cord of love that is unbreakable. And because of that we are more than conquerors though the love Christ Jesus, our Savior. AMEN.