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In November, I wrote a post about a prayer in which I experienced God’s love. That experience was about more than just a feeling.
All Christians, I’d guess, would readily confess that God loves them. As the song goes, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” When pushed to explain their theology on this point, many would qualify their claim: “God loves me in Christ,” by which they mean that “God loves me through the blood of Christ,” or “Because I am hid in Christ, He loves me,” or “When God looks at me, He sees Christ, and not my dirty rags,” or “God loves me because the blood of Christ covers me.”
I don’t know about the theology back of all these statements, but they stem from belief in a God who is too small to love us sinful human beings just as we are. “God loves me because I am hid in Christ” uses clever religious terminology to say, “I don’t think God could really love me as I am. Thank God that His blood covers me, otherwise He could not love me and His wrath would be upon me.”
The fact of the matter is that God loves me, apart from any involvement by Christ. He loves me, just as I am. For while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Why in the world would Christ, the second member of the Godhead, God in the flesh, suffer and die for me unless He loved me? Unless… He… loved… me.
One day, a young man came to Jesus and asked him how he could get eternal life. The Scriptures tell us that Jesus looked at him and loved him. There was no blood. There was no hiding in Christ. Jesus loved him. Likewise, Jesus looks at me, just as I am, and he loves me. I do not have to change, ever, for God to love me. If I never change, if I never throw off my bad habits, if I never become one iota more loving, if I never gain in patience, if I never tell anyone about Christ, if I never pray, if I never give God the time of day, He will never love me any less. If I were to have success in all these ways, God will never love me any more. He loves me, just as I am. If there is any good news in this world, that’s it.
Religious activities in which many of us engage are very effective tools for preventing us from coming to a true appreciation of God’s love for us. We believe, and pray, and sing, and listen to sermons proclaiming that God is good, that He is good all the time, that He brings blessings into and around our lives, that this is the day that the Lord has made, that God delights in us. We thank God that He loves us. The truth is that we have reservations about just how much God loves us. At the very same moment we profess that God loves us, do we think for one second that God likes us? “God likes me” is a notion that gets much closer to the real meaning of the phrase “God loves me, for me.” Maybe He loves us, but we’re not so sure that He loves us enough to like us. Now there’s a concept that we must come to terms with.
There is a world of difference between “God loves me in Christ” and “God loves me, just as I am… right here, right now.” Try the latter on for size for a few days, especially during times when you have given God not a thought, or done something wrong, or failed in some way, and you’ll see what I mean.
Hi Rick
I’m passing on the “Very Inspiring Blog” award to you.
You can get your award at this site.
http://robinclaire.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/very-inspiring-blog-award/
robin claire
The idea that God could “like” me… that’s something I’m going to ponder on. Sure, I’m comfortable with Him loving me. I’m lovable to Him. But if He can “like” me, well that would me I have a friend, of sorts. God wants not only to be my Father, but friends with me as well. I have a husband who “loves” me but doesn’t seem to “like” me all that much. Something to do with my personality. But if God “likes”
my personality. That would be really something. Because the personality I feel I have been given – is difficult. I’ve always said I’m an “acquired taste”.
You’d think that a guy who is 59 years old would have had all this settled years ago. Though the Spiritual Exercises address this issue early on, it took me many months to come to terms with God’s liking me. A light bulb came on when I realized the implication of the fact that God had made me. I know of no one who creates a work of art and then doesn’t like it. A potter might make a bowl that isn’t quite right and so abandons the effort, reworking the lump of clay. But once the bowl is fired, the potter “owns” the work and it goes on display.
One day in my office, I read Isaiah 43:1-5, especially “you are precious in my sight.” I wept upon reading this very familiar passage. Really? I am precious to Him? God not only made me, but He “owns” me. He likes me, and He likes me a LOT.
Finally, I considered the implication that God lives in me: a sinner in whom God has taken up residence. There is at least a little bit of heaven inside of me, that place where God lives. It is in that place where I meet God (Matt 6:6). If God didn’t like me a LOT, would He let me into that place?
The real test came when I failed at something and had to approach God in prayer. What was my attitude going to be? What would I say to Him? Would I dwell on the failure? Would I let my ineptitude dominate my prayer time? Would I get depressed, a response that is common with me? Would I have any sense that I needed to do penance of some kind, that I could not approach Him until I had made up for my failure? Or… could I mention the failure, almost in passing, and then move quickly to other positive things? Over time and with practice, I have come to realize that my sin cannot be the main focus of my life with God. As long as I am focused on my sin, I will be “continually absorbed in contemplating the weakness of [my] earthly nature, the springs of [my] anions will never flow free from the mire of timid, weak, and cowardly thoughts… we should fix our eyes on Christ our only good, and on His saints; there we shall learn true humility, and our minds will be ennobled, so that self-knowledge will not make us base and cowardly” (St. Teresa, Interior Castle).
I am not cavalier about my sins. They comprise a serious offense against God Almighty. While I do confess my sins, I will not allow myself to stay at that bus stop for very long. There is a journey with God that needs be undertaken and I best be at it.
Dear Rick,
Have you read “Her Testimony” yet? It’s one of the “Pages” on my blog.
I’m going to work more with God “liking” me… see what I can come up with.
robin
I have read your testimony page. Thank you for your comments. They prompted my next post on this blog.
Once we understand God’s love for us and total acceptance of us as we are, warts and all, the challenge then becomes to show this love to others.
How true. Ignatius wrote, “First, it is well to remark two things: the first is that love ought to be put more in deeds than in
words.” Sounds a lot like the apostle John’s first epistle, yes?