Undeserved & Unreserved(How He Loves)

The other day, my roommate and I were talking about life and God and where we fit in in His grand scheme of things; and she brought up an interesting point...She looked at me, and she said, "You know, when something bad happens to me, I think 'God must be punishing me for doing this or for doing that,' and I forget that God actually loves me."

Her words hit me pretty hard because I have the same problem. I often find myself falling into the mindset of 'if I mess up, God is going to be mad at me.' But if I put all of my eggs into the self-righteous basket, then I'm missing the big message; the message that Jesus himself came to the world to share: God's love and grace are undeserved and unreserved. There's nothing that we can do to deserve His love (We would only fall discouragingly short if we tried), and there is nothing that we can do to make Him love us any more or less than He does.

His love is fierce, it's overwhelming, and it's forgiving.

One of my favorite songs, How He Loves (originally written and performed by John Mark McMillan) captures the immensity of God's awe-inspiring love wonderfully.

*Note: This video contains graphic violent content*

After watching those clips combined with that song, I was weak in the knees and had tears welling up in my eyes. Sometimes I tell people that God's love makes me want to laugh and cry uncontrollably at the same time. This video does that for me. There's just something about seeing Christ's sacrifice played out in front of my very eyes that puts it all into perspective for me, and then I realize how much He truly loves us; how He loves me.

Surrender

[suh-ren-der]

v. To give oneself up, as into the power of another; submit or yield.

Love

[luhv]

n. A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another.

We don't often tie the words 'love' and 'surrender' together, but it's as if they were created for each other. We have to surrender to the love of Christ to fully experience it. I learned this particular lesson the hard way (I don't think any other methods of learning have ever worked for me). I tried so hard to be worthy of God's love, and I kept coming up short. Not just by a little, but by light years. And finally, after 20+ years of trying, I'm just starting to realize that God's love isn't something that we earn or work for, it's something that we surrender to.

It doesn't matter how beaten down you are, or how lost you think you might be, God loves you! I really can't express enough how exciting that is. If I could stand on top of a mountain, with the world as my audience, and shout, "He loves us! He loves you! His love is never ending!" I would. I literally feel no shame for my faith. I want the whole world to know how He loves.

*images*

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