“For Thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:36, 37).

The Christians in Rome were persecuted, killed and blamed for so many crimes which they did not commit and were even made scapegoats when the city of Rome was burnt. A peek into the past would suggest how blessed we are when compared to the annihilated Roman Christians and how gladly they laid down their lives for the sake of Jesus Christ. Apostle Paul quotes Ps 44:22 in his letter as to how God’s people in general, were killed all the day long and were regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. In spite of what was going on in Rome, he encouraged them to believe that ‘in all these things (punishment, torture and death) they were still more than conquerors’!

 As a matter of fact, doesn’t it sound paradoxical for Paul to write to the Roman Christians, that they were more than conquerors when decimated like sheep?  His rationalization was based on the fact that the Romans, who killed the innocent Christians, only conquered earthly kingdoms by waging war and killing mortal men, while the suffering Christians with the love of Jesus Christ, conquered the chief perpetrators of sin - flesh, world and satan! The Romans in his opinion were mere ‘conquerors’ while the Roman Christians were ‘more than conquerors’.

He then goes on to add in the verses that follow, that having conquered sin, there was nothing now to separate them from the love of Christ. (Romans 8:38, 39)

Thought for the day: Conquering sin is a greater conquest than conquering kingdoms.