How He Loves Us...

Why is it so easy to forget about the love of God?

So often I view my relationship with Him as something I need to earn or do better... which leaves me exhausted and unmotivated to be with Him. It's as if a hard case forms around my heart and I can't hear Him or feel Him hear me, and the longer this goes on the thicker the case. The more I read the Word in these times, the more my "To Do..." list grows. How did I learn to read the Bible this way? As if it's something I need to accomplish rather than the beautiful love story I know it to be?

Praise God that He doesn't give up on us! I'm so thankful that He is the pursuer of my heart... and that He never stops calling me closer and closer to His. Yesterday morning I decided to get real about the messy place I've been lately... just being honest about how little I desired to be in the Word and that I didn't know what to read anyway. My amazing husband opened my Bible to Galatians and reminded me of how much Jesus desires to spend time with us... and how much I desire to walk with Him. I started to read... amazed that I could forget about His AMAZING GRACE!

"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to DELIVER us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and FATHER, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen" ...it begins. And immediately I'm reminded of the great love of God and that this time i'm living in is evil, yet I am delivered from it! The lies I've been believing swarm through my mind, only this time instead of acknowledging them as truth I see the fallacy in them.

I keep reading, amazed by the love of God in Paul and how focussed he is on that love in the midst of a bunch of lies trying to keep him from being free! "...yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified." Duh! I cannot earn the love of God... I can never prove my love for Him... all I can do is have FAITH in the love of Christ Jesus for me and believe that I am justified and accepted by Him because of His sacrifice.

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Oh, how He loves us!!! ...and everything fades, my heart melts, stone turns to flesh once again, and I am filled to overflowing with the joy that comes from being so intimately loved by the CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE!

Why is it so easy to forget about the love of God? It really doesn't matter... when we see His heart and get to know His character and love, "all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, and I realize just how beautiful You are and how great Your affections are for me!" - David Crowder Band

"For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."