Thursday, February 17, 2011

God's Great Love

Over the past few weeks I have been reading many scriptures about and meditating on God's love for us. I so often lose sight of God's enduring, faithful, and unconditional love for us. I feel as though the mess of my life - the inner struggles with negativity and judgement, the many times I lose my cool with children, my lack of discipline in spending time with the Lord - I feel as though God can't really completely love a broken person like me. But those are lies of our enemy to my spirit.

"I have loved you deeply", says the Lord. Malachi 1:12

"For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love." Romans 5:5b

"I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. So I live my life in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galations 2:20

"I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you expereience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God." Ephesians 3:17-19

I am never going to fully comprehend God's love for me, but I want to understand it as much possible and be filled with the fullness of life and power as a result. It's so difficult to really understand this type of love living in a fallen world with sinful people, but I think God gives us glimpses. I think one glimpse of God's love for us is displayed in the way children love their parents. No matter how many times we mess up they are so quick to forgive and truly forget and just love us. I can yell at my kiddos and be very harsh with them, and then come to them and ask for forgiveness and they fully forgive, embrace me and extend true grace and love to me. What a gift to see such pure love expressed to me through my precious babes.

Today take some time to bask in God's great love for you. No matter how many times you've messed up, no matter what you've done He love you unconditionally and desires to know you personally. Amazing!!