Imagine hearing this from someone you are dating:
Your lips are as red as wine
Your eyes sparkle with life
The flow of your hair is like a river of enchantment
You’re a little fat
You fill the room with grace when you enter
Just your presence brings joy to my heart
Out of the list, what do you most remember?
Yep, the criticism.
Do you ever feel like this in church or other Christian
environments? You're told repeatedly: Jesus loves
you! Jesus forgives you!
But inserted between those lines are these other parts:
You're despicable in his eyes because of your sin.
You're a miserable sinner.
God can't be near you when you sin because He's
perfect. His presence can't bear sin.
Your heart is deceitful above all things.
You're a wretch!
Oh, but God is wild about you...yeah, right.
It's like saying to my wife, "You're my soulmate, but
you disgust me. I love you!"
Well, of course, in Christianese, we tag on, "God loves
you because Jesus covers you." So, apparently, you're still
disgusting, but God threw a pretty blanket called Jesus over
you. Now that he can't really see you, He loves you.
But if "God is love" as John wrote, then surely He
knows love better than we do. Could it be that the Father can see
into the depths of you and sees the true you?
Could it be that His heart longs for the one he created?
Could it be that He is grieved by what sin has done to
you? How it has marred your true self? Even the sin you
yourself chose.
Could it be that instead of being offended by sin, that He
instead moves towards that which is killing your soul, because He wants to
destroy it. Unlike the claim that God can't have sinners in His
presence, we see Jesus, God in human form, going t o w a r d sinners, spending
time with them, loving them, challenging them, and saying, "Follow
me."
If you are in Christ, you are not a sinner
anymore. You're a saint. You are "holy"-meaning
set apart as special to Him and "dearly loved." You're not
just "loved" but "dearly," affectionately, tenderly,
voraciously loved.
And just like I love my wife regardless of her lack of
perfection, your Father loves you, His beloved.
