Nothing Can Separate Us From God’s Love: Faith Over Feelings in Romans 8

Nothing can separate us from the love of God, but there are seasons when that love feels far away. In this message from Romans 8:28–39, Pastor Paul Hohman faces that tension honestly. He teaches that God’s love never moves; when it seems distant, we are the ones who need to realign with His Word. The answer is not trying harder in our own strength, but abiding in Christ and taking steps of faith, even when our feelings and circumstances say otherwise.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary, the Scripture behind each point (NKJV on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline and practical steps for this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was posted on October 20, 2020, while services were also streamed on Facebook Live. The recording runs about 72 minutes. It opens with worship and communion, led with a call to examine our hearts and release unforgiveness, and Pastor Paul Hohman begins preaching at about the 17-minute mark. He passes along greetings from Dr. Hohman and explains that he has been studying the book of Romans.

His approach is personal and transparent. He admits there are times he does not feel God’s love the way he did in worship that morning, and he works through Romans 8 verse by verse to show why those feelings do not change the truth.

When God’s Love Feels Distant

Pastor Paul starts with the verse most believers know by heart. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” He loves this verse in Romans 8, but he also invites the church to get real with God. Not everything that happens to us feels good, and some of it has been, in his words, pretty yuck.

Many Christians quietly expect that giving their life to Jesus will make the roller coaster stop. When it does not, they start asking God why. Pastor Paul explains that believers are a threat to the work of the enemy, and the thief comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10). The moment we start questioning God, he says, Satan moves in to pull us away from our relationship with Him.

He points to Job. Even Job’s wife told him to curse God and die, but Job refused. He kept pressing in regardless of what he felt or what anyone said, and in the end he received double of everything he had before (Job 42:10).

Pastor Paul contrasts this with living by luck, like scratching off a lottery ticket. The more he gets to know God and His Word, the more confident he becomes. Psalm 119:165 says great peace have those who love God’s law, and nothing causes them to stumble. Perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18), and the joy of the Lord is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10), even when we do not feel it.

That, he says, is the difference between personal relationship and religion. You can know all about the promises, but unless you apply the Word and take steps of faith, it stays in your head. Nothing can separate us from God’s love, yet we still have to walk in it. He also confesses a habit many share: striving in the wrong area, trying to make things happen, when God is calling us to labor to enter His rest (Hebrews 4:11). With God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26), and His love empowers us to step out.

Peace in the Middle of Tribulation

Next he turns to John 16:33, where Jesus says that in Him we may have peace; in the world we will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world. The key words are “in Me.” Our dwelling place is in Christ, and when we stay abiding in Him, nothing else can get to us.

Pastor Paul explains the Greek word behind tribulation, thlipsis, as a catch-all for the hard things of life: pressure, oppression, stress, anguish and adversity. Everyone has been there, and some are walking through it right now. Even when sickness strikes, he says, he can declare that by His stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5), and keep pressing in through the process with his eyes fixed on Jesus.

He reminds the church that Jesus went before us. In Gethsemane, facing the cross, Jesus asked for the cup to pass from Him, yet prayed, nevertheless not My will but Yours (Luke 22:42–44). The pressure was so intense that His sweat became like great drops of blood. He asked His disciples to watch with Him one hour (Matthew 26:40). He carried the sin and shame of the entire world.

Because nothing can separate us from His love, we can pray the same way. Nevertheless, Lord, not what I am feeling right now, and not the mind games Satan is playing. I refuse to doubt Your purpose for my life. Will His love always be there? Absolutely. Does it sometimes seem distant? Yes. But Pastor Paul asks the congregation to say it with him: it is not God, it is me.

The fix is to come back and align ourselves with His Word. God is a God of decency and order (1 Corinthians 14:40). He does not want our lives to be chaotic and frustrated, with us wondering what in the world is going on. He wants us confident in Him.

Predestined for Such a Time as This

Romans 8:29–30 says that those God foreknew He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, and those He predestined He also called, justified and glorified. Pastor Paul teaches that predestination means God already has a purpose and a plan for your life. It is up to you to choose to take hold of it.

He says he has read the back of the book and he is a victor through Jesus Christ his Lord. Why would he doubt the God who made the sun, moon and stars? Jesus said we can tell a mountain to be removed and cast into the sea (Mark 11:23). Too many believers keep circling the same mountain and asking why, instead of speaking to it. Obstacles that look insurmountable turn into molehills.

Being alive in 2020 was no accident, he tells the church. God placed you here because He has empowered you to handle it. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you (Philippians 4:13), because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).

Being conformed to the image of His Son also means that when God looks at you, He sees you as righteous. Some people find that hard to accept, believing they have done too many bad things or walked too far away. Pastor Paul says you are always one step away from declaring, I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:21).

He draws a progression from these verses: God takes us from faith to faith, strength to strength and glory to glory. It begins with faith because without faith it is impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6). That means leaving our comfort zone, such as sharing Jesus with family members who mock, and trusting His ability rather than our own. Steps of faith, he says, are what please God.

Steps of Faith in Action

To show what happens when we take steps of faith, Pastor Paul shares stories from his own life. As a college freshman, he was asked to go to Africa on a ministry trip with no fixed plan. Once there, they met a pastor named Peter and held packed nightly meetings in a church that was still being built, with people peering in through every unfinished window.

They visited a region hit so hard by AIDS that whole families had died and their huts were boarded up. At an orphanage of over a hundred children, he saw a little boy with what looked like bark growing out of his head. Compassion rose up, the children were prayed for, and he reports seeing that growth vanish.

He also tells of a man who came to testify after being hit by a truck on his motor scooter. His X-rays showed a skull fractured like puzzle pieces, and his head was badly swollen. He came to church anyway, sat through worship in pain, and by the end the pain and swelling were gone. The next day’s X-ray, he said, showed no sign of any fracture, and he brought both films to church that night.

This kind of growth, Pastor Paul teaches, also happens in the mind. Thoughts come that say you are not qualified, that miracles are only for the fivefold ministers. We grow from strength to strength by casting down those imaginations (2 Corinthians 10:5). God will never tell you that you are less than; you are more than a conqueror.

The same faith works close to home. At the church’s food pantry, he loves to pray with people, telling them God sent them for a greater reason than food. He describes a woman whose newly bought car kept breaking down; after prayer, she reported that God had provided a brand new car that worked great. An elderly man with a strange growth on his thumb came back to say it was gone the day after prayer.

He knows that when he lays hands on the sick, they will recover (Mark 16:18). When he backs down and tries things in his own strength, he makes a mess of it. He may still make mistakes when he takes steps of faith, but God has his back and works all things for his good.

David: A Heart That Comes Back

Pastor Paul then turns to King David. As Jesse’s youngest son, David was given the lowly job of shepherd, yet he became a man after God’s own heart by worshiping and spending time with God. As a boy he killed a lion and a bear (1 Samuel 17:34–37).

Sent to bring food to his brothers, he found Israel’s army cowering before a giant over nine feet tall who mocked the armies of the living God. David took five smooth stones from the brook, though he needed only one, and with the power of God released it from his sling (1 Samuel 17:40–50). Pastor Paul notes that David was not relying on his own cunning or strength; he had come to know God.

Yet becoming king was not the end of David’s struggles. He humbled himself under Saul, befriended Jonathan, and still made terrible mistakes. He took another man’s wife, and when she became pregnant he sent her husband to the front line to be killed (2 Samuel 11:14–17).

What David did next is the lesson. In Psalm 51:10–17 he cried out for God to create in him a clean heart and renew a right spirit within him. Pastor Paul reads this prayer from a modern paraphrase, which pictures David asking God never to take His Spirit away, to restore his joy, and to unlock his lips so he can show other guilty people how merciful God is.

There are no levels of sin, Pastor Paul says. A little white lie and murder both need forgiveness, because God is after the heart. David did not make excuses about what others had done to him. He used three words: Lord, forgive me. When we repent, God’s arms of grace and mercy are right where they have always been; we have simply positioned ourselves back inside them.

Nothing Can Separate Us: Paul’s Five Questions

Returning to Romans 8, Pastor Paul reads Romans 8:31–36. He explains that the apostle Paul asks five questions designed to give believers assurance of spiritual security. The table below follows the answers he draws from each one.

On the fourth question, he notes that Jesus died, rose and now sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us every day. Death no longer has any bearing on the believer. Whatever stupid thoughts try to enter our minds, we know what our Redeemer has done, what He is doing now and what He has ahead.

On the fifth, he says that when God seems distant our next prayer should be: open my eyes, help me align with Your Word; I may not feel You, but I know You are with me. And he offers a memorable line: “If you’re going to doubt anything, doubt your doubts.” Doubt the voice that says you did not pray enough, grew up on the wrong side of the tracks or never had the perfect family.

Then he leads the church in reading Romans 8:37–39 aloud, as if reading it to Satan himself: “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Neither death nor life, angels nor principalities, things present nor things to come, nor any created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

That love, he says, is agape: unconditional and uncontainable. The Word of God is a two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12), so we declare it over our families, workplaces and relationships. We cannot fixate on our troubles or dwell on the past. Because nothing can separate us from the love of God, we look forward and declare salvation for our families.

Walking in God’s Love This Week

Pastor Paul closes with a prayer of repentance and a blessing of peace over every storm. Here are practical steps drawn from the message:

• Say the three words. When you know you have fallen short, skip the excuses and pray, Lord, forgive me.
• Release unforgiveness. If you have something against someone, go to them, as the communion call urged (Matthew 5:23–24).
• Abide before you strive. Start the day by placing yourself in Christ through His Word rather than in your own effort.
• Doubt your doubts. Treat thoughts that say you are not good enough as lies to cast down, not facts to accept.
• Take one step of faith. Offer to pray with someone, share Jesus, or speak to the mountain you keep circling.
• Read Romans 8:37–39 aloud. Declare it over your family, workplace and relationships when pressure comes.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:01 Worship
• 9:32 Communion: examine your heart and forgive
• 16:53 Greetings and the theme of the message
• 18:33 Opening prayer: doers of the Word
• 19:32 When God’s love does not feel close
• 21:08 Romans 8:28: all things work together for good
• 22:58 Job keeps pressing in
• 24:42 Relationship versus religion
• 25:35 John 16:33: peace in Christ
• 27:30 Tribulation and Gethsemane
• 29:36 “It’s me”: realigning with the Word
• 30:48 Romans 8:29–30: predestined and called
• 34:53 Faith to faith and stepping out
• 35:49 A first trip to Africa
• 40:09 The man with the crushed skull
• 44:41 Prayer at the food pantry
• 47:54 David: lion, bear and Goliath
• 52:10 David’s failure and Psalm 51
• 56:53 Romans 8:31–36: Paul’s five questions
• 1:02:56 Doubt your doubts
• 1:03:48 Romans 8:37–39: more than conquerors
• 1:08:25 Lord, forgive me
• 1:09:30 Prayer of repentance and blessing

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does the service begin with communion and forgiveness?

The communion time that opens the service is described as a moment to examine your heart and ask whether anything has taken God’s place. Worshipers are urged to go to anyone they have offended and ask for forgiveness, and to let unforgiveness go, because it hinders our relationship with the Lord. It sets up the sermon well: Pastor Paul later teaches that when God seems distant, the issue is usually on our side.

Does predestination mean my life is already decided?

Pastor Paul teaches that God has already prepared a purpose and a plan for your life, but that you still choose whether to take hold of it. He describes this as saying to God, I tried my way and it did not work, so I want everything You have for me. Predestination, in his teaching, is an invitation to step into God’s plan, not a reason to sit back.

What should I pray when God feels far away?

Pastor Paul suggests a simple prayer: God, open my eyes and help me align myself with Your Word; I may not feel You right now, but I know You are with me, so I thank You by faith. He also encourages asking God to remind you again how much He loves you, and, where needed, asking forgiveness for entertaining wrong thoughts longer than you should have.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Romans 8:28 — all things work together for good
• Romans 8:29–30 — foreknown, predestined, called, justified, glorified
• Romans 8:31–36 — who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
• Romans 8:37–39 — more than conquerors
• John 16:33 — peace in Christ, tribulation in the world
• Luke 22:42–44 — not My will, but Yours
• Psalm 51:10–17 — create in me a clean heart
• 1 Samuel 17:40–50 — David and Goliath
• Hebrews 11:6 — without faith it is impossible to please Him

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

Watch More Messages

If this message reminded you how much God loves you, there are hundreds more teachings from NTC Ministries waiting for you. Browse the full sermon archive and keep growing in the love nothing can take away.