God loves you!
How often have I heard this statement since I became a follower of Jesus? Simultaneously, I have heard a linked thought: God is Love! And frankly, if He is made of LOVE, how can He not exude it wherever He goes? There is a certain eloquent synchronicity about all of this.
But I must admit that it has NOT been an easy journey for me to believe in the validity of this statement.
When I finally accepted the Lord’s gift of salvation in 2006, I initially felt secure knowing that Jesus wanted the best for me. But, as my life continued forward, I realized that I was not content with only knowing God. I needed to know more about God. All these LOVE messages I was reading in the Bible and hearing about in Sunday sermons were somehow not going deep inside me. I was really struggling to be fully engaged in this whole concept.
And when I looked beyond my disconnect, I found that I was not alone.
Many men that I knew ultimately felt that they were simply unlovable. Upon reflection, I realized that this was my heart-felt belief, too. How could I pursue a personal relationship with a Holy God after all the wrong I had done? How could that same righteous God ever desire to invest anything in sinful me? After all, even after coming to Christ, I was honestly not pursuing a life that was much different than the one I had BEFORE I knew Jesus.
It took a little while for me to finally realize that God was indeed neither disgusted nor surprised by who or what I was. He knew me. He knew me inside and out, every misguided action and unrighteous thought. AND YET, He desired to walk with, support, grow, and welcome me deeper into His forever family.
God loves you!
At one point, I had defiantly walked away from God. In fact, I ultimately ended up an Atheist in my late teens and twenties. I was injured, angry and screaming at the Heavens. Happily, as I moved into my thirties, things started softening somewhat. But I still had huge reservations about who or what God was. I was working through misconceptions that whispered all He wanted to be was a “kill-joy” in my life, telling me all my faults and mistakes while trying to stop me from doing anything that I thought brought me pleasure.
The story that Jesus shared about the Prodigal Son finally made it all clear to me. God’s truth penetrated my adversely rough/hardened exterior on that fifteenth or sixteenth reading of the parable. The father in the Scripture was God, and I was the prodigal son who had turned my back on Him by trying to do it all my way -Not understanding that He had waited for me or that He had longed for the day that I would finally return home to Him. And, even in my brokenness, He wanted to lavish His love on me and direct me into something better than what I had been living to that point.
Jesus summed it up perfectly:
“The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” John 10:10 NLT
God loves you!
How much has your disbelief that God could personally care about you held you back? How long has this thought kept you from embracing His fullness for your life? Perhaps you had an “earthly” father who treated you horribly or with total indifference, and that soured you on the entire concept of a loving parent anywhere? What have you done, said, or believed that you felt you could never share with anyone? Maybe even today, on the other side of meeting Jesus, you still struggle and fail mightily in so many ways.
LifeCentre constantly prays a prayer for every one of us that we all can afford to re-engage with:
“God — Thank you for loving me just the way I am. BUT — Thank you for NOT leaving me just the way I am.”
God can and will meet you in every one of the situations mentioned above – eager to introduce Himself fully to you as your Heavenly Father. He will not turn His back on you. He will not be disgusted or disinterested in you. In fact, He will want to embrace you as His valued and specially created child immediately, made for such a time as this. Entirely precious in His sight.
Now is the time to open your mind and your heart to something more. Look past the feeling that you may be believing at this moment:
God loves you!
Know that you are invited forward and welcomed into His family even in your incompleteness. He desires you to be near Him, to be filled and fulfilled by Him:
God loves you!
Focus your mind and spirit on the single most important fact that you will ever need to consider and grab ahold of it:
God loves you!
