Let God love you

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Is it easy for you to receive God's personal love for you?  Maybe you see Him as far off, or His love as all-encompassing but not for you personally.

Yet Jesus suffered unimaginable pain and agony on the cross not only to make a way to heaven for all of us, but so that we can enter His Presence here and now, in this broken, on-its-way-out world!

I admit I have struggled with accepting how much God loves me personally.  Why?  Because I know how unworthy I am of such a vast, deep, permanent, and unconditional love. 

When we are honest with ourselves, we know that we can never earn God's love in and of ourselves.  We are all way too sinful for that!  This holds true for even the "best" of us.  We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, from Mother Theresa to Hitler!  All we like sheep have gond astray, every one to his own way.  I don't make this stuff up!  This is the Word of God.

But in His great love for us, God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die for our sins so that we could know and experience His great love for us here and now, up close and personal.

Wow!  I mean if that doesn't knock your socks off, nothing will!

So if you struggle with feeling unlovable at all, then I bring you good news!  Great news!  The best news of all time!

Jesus is waiting to show you His love, mercy, and grace.  None of us are worthy, so join the club!  

But believe me when I say that His love is all you need.  His love is what you have been looking for all your life.  His love is the only reason to live and die for.  His love will fill you up like nothing or no one ever could.  His love is the reason you were born - to know Him and His great love for you.  

Then, out of that love, you become eager to share His love with others!  You want them to know His great love, too!

His love is not dependent at all on the object of His love.  Unlike us who usually only love those who love us back, Jesus' love is undiscriminating.  It does not depend on us, who we are, or what we are like at all.  Phew!  What a relief!  We don't have to act in any certain way in order to curry God's favor and love.  His love flows toward us like a river!

Don't hear me wrong in this in thinking that this gives you free license to keep sinning against Him!  Does He love you?  Yes.  Does He hate sin.  Yes!

He not only hates sin because He is holy and perfect and cannot look on it, but He hates it for what it does to us.  Sin, put simply, kills us.  It ruins us.  It perverts who we are truly meant to be in God.  No matter how little or small, sin deforms.  Sin destroys.  That is why our loving Heavenly Father hates sin so much!

Jesus brings Life.  Jesus is Life.  Jesus is the Life.  And in Him there is no darkness at all.  So it stands to reason that when we let that Life into our hearts that true Life takes up residence in us, and that is the only reason why not only we no longer want to sin, but it is the only power in the universe that can help us overcome and not sin!  Will we still sin?  Yes!  As long as we're in this earth suit, then yes!

But the joy of knowing Jesus is that we no longer need to sin!  We now have a choice!  

Can you choose between right and wrong without the Holy Spirit to guide you?  Um, take a look at the world around you - there is your answer.  This world is a mess!  And the lines between right and wrong are ever being erased by sinful men, because if they do not have God, then they do not know any better!

The answer is so simple.  If we but knew God's personal love for us, would really receive Him into our hearts, and let Him do His holy work in us, then we can know how to truly live a godly life - one that not only pleases God, but brings you peace and joy and the true sense to discern right from wrong.

So please, let God love you!  Confess your sins before Him, repent of them, and ask Him into your heart today!  Oh, the love that awaits you through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Sweet, loving Lord and Savior.  Oh how I wish that everyone would know and experience Your great love!  For love truly is the answer.  Not a box of chocolates or a dozen roses kind of love, but true, unconditional, everlasting, deep, vast, wide, secure love - that kind that only You provide.  Thank You isn't enough, Lord!  But I thank You anyway for Your tremendous love for me.  I pray that anyone reading these words will come to know Your love, too.  In Jesus' precious Name.  Amen.

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