Jesus Loves You This Much

We all have parts of our lives that we struggle with.  There are so many days when we wake up, look in the mirror and just want to go back to bed. 

I know I do.  I wake up unintentionally channeling my white-as-a-vampire anti-tan in the summer and am surprised I’m even able to see a reflection in the mirror! 

On a more serious note, though, there are days that we all have beaten ourselves black and blue and just asked one heart wrenching question.  “Who could love me?  I am so broken.  I’m damaged goods.” 

I always have imaged people walking around with back packs on our back all through life.  We stuff them full of sin and draw into ourselves the more the weight is added.  Sometimes we weigh it down with insults and weight more than others do.  We can be our worst enemy.

Guess what?  I know who could love you despite your brokenness.  God.  And we've heard this message since we could first sing along to bible songs, in the back of our mom's minivan.  “Jesus loves me this I know….” It’s still true.  That song is still as annoying as it was when we were seven, but the message itself is pretty timeless.  

God loves you.  Amazingly just not despite of your brokenness, but he wants to love you out of your brokenness?

How much does God love you?

<--- This much.  Hands splayed open, nailed through the wrists to a rough wooden beam, hoisted up so the entire world could laugh at him.  Beaten to an inch of his life and then forced to walk what should have been a quick eight minute walk down the street but turned into a heart breaking journey.  Tripping in the cracks of the road beaten until he had to get up.  So exhausted that He couldn't even carry the cross the rest of the way up to the place that He would breath his last breathe.

Do you know what he was thinking about when He was up there?  What was running through His mind when the crowd jeered at Him prove His divinity and come down from the cross?

"I can't come down from the cross. I have to stay up there for (fill-in-your-name-here).  Because sometime in their life, the journey is going to get rough and they are going to look at the journey I went through for them and they're going to have strength and consolation.  I can't get down, I just can't."

What is our excuse to not give 100% of our love back to God? Romans 5:8 says, “And this But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were still sinners.  He didn't get on the cross after we said "I'm sorry."  He died for every sin that had ever been committed and every sin that would ever be committed, knowing that people wouldn't be sorry.

It's time to love God back. 

Matt Maher wrote a beautiful song about Christ's experience on the cross and why He stayed on it....for you.  Listen to this song, the lyrics are just thought-inducingly beautiful. 

It's time to love God 100% with every aspect of our life.  Because He loved us first - and we're called to love in return.

Are you ready for that journey?

Chloe M.