There have been seasons in my life when the thing I was most afraid of wasn’t what was happening around me, it was what was happening inside of me.

Maybe you’ve felt it too.

Life is hard, yes. But sometimes the deeper fear isn’t that life might overwhelm us. It’s that we might overwhelm ourselves. I’ve had moments when the quiet question rising in my heart wasn’t, “Is God real?” or even, “Does God love me?” but something far more personal:

What if I can’t hold on?
What if my faith is the thing that breaks?

I wasn’t questioning God’s commitment. I know He’s faithful. I know He doesn’t abandon His people. My fear wasn’t on His side of the relationship, it was on mine. I wondered, What if I drift? What if the pressure is too much? What if my weakness wins?

And that fear, the fear that we won’t make it to the end, is one many believers quietly carry.

We see our doubts, our inconsistencies, our failures, our temptations, and we wonder: Do I actually have what it takes to persevere?

Paul speaks directly into that fear in Romans 8:35–39.

Instead of asking, “Can we hold on tight enough?” he asks the better question:

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”

Paul shifts the focus away from our wavering grip to God’s unbreakable grasp. Our perseverance isn’t rooted in our strength, it’s rooted in His love.

Then Paul names the very forces we fear: trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword. Real threats. Real suffering. Real pressures.

But Paul’s point is stunningly simple:

None of these things, not the worst life can throw at you, can pull you out of Christ’s hands.

Our lives today aren’t so different. Trouble looks like financial strain and relational conflict. Hardship looks like chronic illness or long-term stress. Persecution looks like being mocked or sidelined for your faith. Famine looks like scarcity. Nakedness looks like shame. Danger looks like threats to our safety. The sword looks like anything that feels like it could undo us.

But none of them can undo God’s love for you.

In fact, Paul says, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Not after the struggle. Not around it. In it.

“More than a conqueror” doesn’t mean you escape hardship, it means Christ’s victory is so complete that even hardship becomes a place where God’s love sustains you.

Then Paul goes even deeper: nothing in death or life, in the present or the future, in the spiritual realm or earthly realm, not even “anything else in all creation,” can separate you from God’s love in Christ.

And that includes you.

Your doubts. Your weakness. Your inconsistency. Your fear that you’ll fall away. All of it falls under “anything else in all creation.”

You cannot undo what God has done.

This is the heart of what Christians have long called the perseverance of the saints:
You will make it to the end, not because you hold tightly to God, but because God holds tightly to you.

So name your fears. Shift the weight onto Him. And live with confidence, not anxiety.

Because the love that saved you is the love that keeps you.

And nothing in the universe can break His grip.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Zac