Friday, September 23, 2016

Just Some Thoughts.....

This morning I woke up with the overwhelming thought that I will never have to earn God's love.
It's a newer thought than you might think for me, someone who 
has had a relationship with my Savior since a very young age.

But this May, during a particularly moving night of worship my heart
crashed into my mind and the knowledge that I have to 
stop trying to earn God's love imploded in me.

I've always been aware of the fact that I can't earn God's love.
But that didn't mean that I wasn't trying to.
I saw God's love through the tinted lens of my human experience. 
An experience where love is conditional, where it's earned by 
achievements and given out as reinforcement for positive behavior
and withheld when the situation was negative. 
I was projecting everything I experienced over the truth, because that
was all I knew.

That's where the disconnect was.
God's love is so contrary to what we find socially acceptable.
God's love chooses you, when no one else will.
God's love rescues you, out of depravity and slavery.
But it doesn't stop at the initiation of salvation.

God's love pursues you.
It's unconditional. He never walks away.
 He never forces you to love Him, because that isn't the face of love.
He doesn't break our legs and drag us to the cross, forcing us to repent
and receive His everlasting love.
He draws us gently to our knees.
His mercy crashes over us because justice has been balanced when He paid our fines.

And it's this realization that brings so much joy to my heart.
There's nothing I can do to earn His love.
Absolutely nothing.
There's peace in ending the struggle to earn it, because it was
unattainable by anything I could do, it is offered freely.

When His people had abandoned Him, had turned away their faces
and were pursuing false love, God cried out for them.

"How can I give you up, O Ephraim...
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender."
Hosea 11:8

It's surprisingly easy overlook the presence of God's love when you
are working for it.
 Let's rest in it instead.