Greetings, all! I'm thoroughly exhausted and it's 1:20 AM, so instead of a full post today I'll leave you with one thought. It just so happens to be one of the most beautiful thoughts ever:
Before you ever tried to do anything good, God had already given you His full love, acceptance, and affirmation. Before you ever knew who God was, He had already given You His full unconditional love, forever.
Consider the woman caught in adultery. She's dragged before Jesus, expecting to die for her sin. Jesus tells everyone else that if they're sinless, they can throw a stone at her. No one does. Then Jesus says something amazing.
First, He says that He doesn't condemn her. He gives her love, forgiveness, and acceptance -- first.
Second, He says to go and sin no more.
Before she had done anything, before she even said she was sorry, He had already given her His love completely.
Notice also that there is no condition. He didn't say that He would stop loving her if she didn't obey. He already loved her, already forgave her. That was done; that was irrevocable. Now, in light of that, she gets to go live a transformed life.
Jesus does this all the time. He did it for Zacchaeus, who was loved and accepted before he ever did anything to right his wrongs. Jesus did it with the woman at the well, whom He loved and accepted before she had ever stopped her life of sexual immorality.
And just to make it perfectly clear, Paul states it for us in Ephesians 2:
God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
(Ephesians 2:4-7 ESV)
Did you catch that? Do you realize when God started to love us? While we were dead in our sins!
In other words, our actions don't make God love us. Our repentance doesn't make God love us. Our love for God doesn't make God love us. Our acceptance of Jesus' gift of salvation doesn't make God love us. Being good Christians doesn't make God love us.
God started loving us while we were at our most disgusting, our most revolting, our most sinful, our most repulsive state ever. This means that we can never be so sinful in our daily lives that God could ever stop loving us.
Before we could ever change, before we could ever do anything to earn it, God already gave us His full love, acceptance, and affirmation.
He loves you now. You have His full love, right now. And you will never, ever lose it!
That was a bit longer than I expected. But I don't regret it :-)
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