When God LOVED a sinner like me †
Love has always been one of my greatest passions.
Love has always been one of my greatest struggles.
Yesterday was such a great day. I am not the biggest fan of the heat, but recently, any opportunity to take my hammock outside and just enjoy the weather has been so good. Yesterday, I had that opportunity and decided it would go nicely with Jesus and some coffee. When I sat down and started reading a message from a friend serving in Africa, she mentioned a song called Through and Through by Will Reagan, and it blew me away. The words were a cry at the heart of how God sees every fiber of who we are, and still loves us the same. I listened and it got my mind spinning for the evening.
I later went to my friends apartment to watch a movie and I wasn't expecting what happened. Conversation went on and a slight comment was made, about confidentiality. No one picked up on it, but I did. It wasn't anything apparently huge, but it hit my heart like a ton of bricks. It remained in my mind for the rest of the evening and when I got in my car the struggle began. Any time I start to struggle, with anything, the enemy knows how to work insecurity in there relentlessly. In my humanity, I took the love of people around me and started projecting it onto God… questioning his love, how it was even possible, looking at myself and thinking there is no way.
God, how could you love someone like me? With all I have done and all of the flesh I live in and every insecurity and lie from the enemy that I listen to instead of your voice, how could your love reach this heart? I begged that night for God to show me, to answer this cry.
He answered, but I was in no way prepared for what I was going to be shown.
I came home later in the afternoon today and sat down with a book called The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith, the chapter read "God is self-sacrificing" and I figured this would be another typical word on the cross and what God did there (looking back now, I am an idiot to ever for a moment call that sacrifice typical, me who is a typical human). And it began with a question, "Ive never understood the cross, why did Jesus have to die?" In all honesty, I have questioned this too, and even in the midst of reading those words, my heart was stirred and those moments were wrought with confusion, questioning love and the cross.
What was brought to my attention was how deep my own sin goes. It is not just some surface coat of bad deeds or a messed up ideal of self/life. The corruption of my flesh goes deep, like a disease that cannot simply be cured by a good diet and exercise. It has become a part of my nature and a spiritual death has occurred. There was no saving myself or working my way out of this one…. what is the answer?
Jesus and the cross.
I knew the story. Jesus came as a human, but also God at the same time. He died and resurrected, defeating my sin and canceling my debt. Now, I have eternal life and a relationship with God. But why did he have to die? Why come as a human? Couldn't God have just forgiven everyone and been done with it? No…. My body is subject to sin and the law of death, so he had to take on this flesh in order to die. So, he freely made this sacrifice out of sheer love for me. It all came together with these words, "it was by surrendering to death the body which He had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, that he abolished death for His human brothers and sisters by offering of the equivalent. He fulfilled in death all that was required."
The beautiful, holy, pure, sinless, and completely incorrupt God humbled himself to take on the lowest, weakest point, and then die a death marked by shame. But in so doing, death died that day, and what was born in the ultimate paradox was a forever picture of radiant glory.
God of his own free choice, laid his love out on a cross, in exposing vulnerability, and then gave every person the choice to love him. He was willing to risk no one loving him in return. There is nothing more vulnerable than that, a picture of self-sacrifice….
So here I am: a corrupt sinner, a scarred, hesitant, doubting, questioning, insecure little girl… in front of this beautiful cross with Jesus right there, and yet I am still asking "Do you really love me?"
Was there a better answer than the picture that was standing right in front of me. This was ALL of what God had done for me….
I began to understand why love is such a struggle for me. It is all about self-sacrifice and vulnerability of the heart, to the intense possibility of rejection and not being loved in return. Its scary and will deeply weaken me, leaving me completely exposed. Here is where my question was born. Here is where God met me with his own sacrifice of supreme vulnerability, offering me his love laid bare.
Some of the final words I read…"maybe vulnerability is true strength. Maybe sacrificing yourself for the good of another is not a sign of weakness but is the greatest power the world ever knows."
I asked God again,
"do you really love me?"
"how can you love me?"
He answered, "Yes, I love you to death."
Love has always been one of my greatest struggles.
Yesterday was such a great day. I am not the biggest fan of the heat, but recently, any opportunity to take my hammock outside and just enjoy the weather has been so good. Yesterday, I had that opportunity and decided it would go nicely with Jesus and some coffee. When I sat down and started reading a message from a friend serving in Africa, she mentioned a song called Through and Through by Will Reagan, and it blew me away. The words were a cry at the heart of how God sees every fiber of who we are, and still loves us the same. I listened and it got my mind spinning for the evening.
I later went to my friends apartment to watch a movie and I wasn't expecting what happened. Conversation went on and a slight comment was made, about confidentiality. No one picked up on it, but I did. It wasn't anything apparently huge, but it hit my heart like a ton of bricks. It remained in my mind for the rest of the evening and when I got in my car the struggle began. Any time I start to struggle, with anything, the enemy knows how to work insecurity in there relentlessly. In my humanity, I took the love of people around me and started projecting it onto God… questioning his love, how it was even possible, looking at myself and thinking there is no way.
God, how could you love someone like me? With all I have done and all of the flesh I live in and every insecurity and lie from the enemy that I listen to instead of your voice, how could your love reach this heart? I begged that night for God to show me, to answer this cry.
He answered, but I was in no way prepared for what I was going to be shown.
I came home later in the afternoon today and sat down with a book called The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith, the chapter read "God is self-sacrificing" and I figured this would be another typical word on the cross and what God did there (looking back now, I am an idiot to ever for a moment call that sacrifice typical, me who is a typical human). And it began with a question, "Ive never understood the cross, why did Jesus have to die?" In all honesty, I have questioned this too, and even in the midst of reading those words, my heart was stirred and those moments were wrought with confusion, questioning love and the cross.
What was brought to my attention was how deep my own sin goes. It is not just some surface coat of bad deeds or a messed up ideal of self/life. The corruption of my flesh goes deep, like a disease that cannot simply be cured by a good diet and exercise. It has become a part of my nature and a spiritual death has occurred. There was no saving myself or working my way out of this one…. what is the answer?
Jesus and the cross.
I knew the story. Jesus came as a human, but also God at the same time. He died and resurrected, defeating my sin and canceling my debt. Now, I have eternal life and a relationship with God. But why did he have to die? Why come as a human? Couldn't God have just forgiven everyone and been done with it? No…. My body is subject to sin and the law of death, so he had to take on this flesh in order to die. So, he freely made this sacrifice out of sheer love for me. It all came together with these words, "it was by surrendering to death the body which He had taken, as an offering and sacrifice free from every stain, that he abolished death for His human brothers and sisters by offering of the equivalent. He fulfilled in death all that was required."
The beautiful, holy, pure, sinless, and completely incorrupt God humbled himself to take on the lowest, weakest point, and then die a death marked by shame. But in so doing, death died that day, and what was born in the ultimate paradox was a forever picture of radiant glory.
God of his own free choice, laid his love out on a cross, in exposing vulnerability, and then gave every person the choice to love him. He was willing to risk no one loving him in return. There is nothing more vulnerable than that, a picture of self-sacrifice….
So here I am: a corrupt sinner, a scarred, hesitant, doubting, questioning, insecure little girl… in front of this beautiful cross with Jesus right there, and yet I am still asking "Do you really love me?"
Was there a better answer than the picture that was standing right in front of me. This was ALL of what God had done for me….
I began to understand why love is such a struggle for me. It is all about self-sacrifice and vulnerability of the heart, to the intense possibility of rejection and not being loved in return. Its scary and will deeply weaken me, leaving me completely exposed. Here is where my question was born. Here is where God met me with his own sacrifice of supreme vulnerability, offering me his love laid bare.
Some of the final words I read…"maybe vulnerability is true strength. Maybe sacrificing yourself for the good of another is not a sign of weakness but is the greatest power the world ever knows."
I asked God again,
"do you really love me?"
"how can you love me?"
He answered, "Yes, I love you to death."
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