lent 2023 day 20 Unconditional

 Unconditional

When you look up the definition of ' unconditional' you get, obviously, without any conditions. But then you get a list of similar words:

 Unquestioning, unqualified, unreserved, unlimited, unrestricted, wholesale, wholehearted, complete, total, entire, full, outright, absolute, downright, out-and-out, utter, all-out ,thoroughgoing, unequivocal, express, positive, indubitable, categorical.  

This is how we are loved.

God loves you without limit, without restriction, with His whole huge enormous heart.  He loves you completely, entirely and categorically.  His love for you is all encompassing, absolute and there is nothing you can do to qualify yourself for it.   

We know this.  But actually believing and living it is a different matter.  Its a funny thing because knowing how much we are loved makes us overflow with love for Him.  We want to please our Father.  We want to serve Him and obey Him and worship Him.  And yet all of that is, in some ways, futile.  because we can't please Him any more than He is already pleased.  He doesnt need our service or our worship.  And yet its the only thing we can do in response to His outrageous sacrifice and His glorious intervention to save us.

When we sin and mess up God's Holy Spirit convicts us so that we can repent.  Its His kindness that leads us to repentance - not because God is disappointed in us or disgusted with us and not because He can't bear to look upon our sin.  No, He wants us to repent because He knows that this is what is good for us. Sin is always something damaging.  Rebellion, pride, selfishness, wrongdoing is always harmful to us and is never God's best for our lives.  SO when God calls us to repent it isnt because of how our sin makes Him feel, its about His desire for us to be living our best lives.   Repentance isnt a way to ' get back into Gods good books'.  We cant ever be in God's bad books.  Really.  We cant.   If sin separated us from His love then that love would be conditional.  Conditional on us being clean, spotless, holy.  But His love is unconditional.  NOTHING can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  The enemy leaps on our sins and piles on guilt.  Guilt leads to condemnation and condemnation makes us feel distant from God.  Condemnation lies to us and tells us that God cant love us now because we are guilty.   Rather than asking for forgiveness and believing we are indeed forgiven, we allow condemnation to beat us up, which leads to us trying to buy our way back into Gods favour by 'doing stuff'.    Read your Bible more, pray more, be a nicer person, bargain with God..... you know how it goes.  All it takes is ' sorry'.  All we make it is stress and works and guilt.

Isnt it wonderful that today God loves you exactly as you are?  He loves your personality and your gifts and your face and your body.   He loves your sense of humour and the way you think and how you work.  He loves your friendships and your creativity.  Your imagination and your dreaming.  He loves the way you speak to people and speak about Him.  Did you know that He is recording your conversations about Him in a book ( Malachai 3 16-17) but He never ever keeps a note of your sins?  He is so delighted at the life of Jesus which is growing in you.  When He looks at you He sees you robed in righteousness, clothed in humility and grace, shining with His reflected glory and leaking His love.

Leaky

I love you

and because I am a little bit broken

I leak you wherever I go.

Everywhere I leak 

small droplets of you fall and grow

When I look back I see the path I've walked

marked with your presence

and I am glad that others following behind

will get to see your beauty  © Caz 2023