What do I have to do to get loved?

by: Newbie

"God loves you."

There, end of story. It's the core of the gospel, the summary of everything we Christians believe. It is our very reason for following Jesus. And we have no clue what it means.

I'm serious! We hear the words and we believe the concept, but actually living it - believing it in our everyday lives - well, that's another story altogether. Let me illustrate with some examples.

Ask yourself where the limit is to the love Daddy has for us. Be really honest. You will notice that there is a 'but' in there somewhere. Let's say that I have a friend who just went to jail for molesting his 5 year old step daughter. Sure, God loves him, but..... Do you see it? We put limits on Papa's love. "I know God loves me, but I need to respond to His love by a life of holiness." No you don't. Live however the hell you want to. He loves you. Some of you are offended that I used that word. See, there is that internal limit that I cross that says 'God can love Mike, but there is a limit to what is acceptable.'

"I feel guilty if I don't read my Bible. I should go to church. I should pray more." Behind every one of those guilt-motivated thoughts is a ridiculous god of judgment and condemnation, just waiting for us to mess up so he can send us to hell. Do you see it? We don't really believe He is love. We believe that He is loving to an extent. After that He is something other than loving - disappointed with us, disgusted with us, waiting for us to get our act together, distant from us. The list goes on and on.

What if God just loved us? No strings attached, no limits, nothing I could do that would ever affect or change His love. What if He was so loving that He couldn't be anything else. Sort of like the sun can't be anything but sunny. It is always sunny, even when it's cloudy down here on earth. When it's night, the sun is still shining on the other side of the world. It never stops shining. It can't. If it stopped shining, it would cease to exist. The very essence of the sun is light.

Water is the same way. It can't stop being wet. You can freeze it (by the way, as I write this, it is -5 degrees here, with a windchill factor of -30). But all the white stuff on the ground is still water in a different form. It can turn to steam, it can stay liquid, or it can get really, really hard and slick, but it is still water. Water can't be anything other than it is, or it ceases to exist.

And God can't be anything else except loving. More than that, He isn't just loving. He IS love. And He can't be anything else. Period! If we sin, He is love. If we tell Him off and want to have nothing to do with Him, He is love. When we perform well and get it all right, He is love. When we fall on our faces into the very worst of who we are, He is love. When we hate Him, He is love. He is love, He is love. When we have vomited on ourselves in a drunken stupor, when we have spent every penny of the week's paycheck by Friday night, when we treat other people like so much cow manure, He is love. When you wake up in the morning next to a person you don't know, He is love. When all your empty religious activity has amounted to less than a hill of beans and you are hollow from the lack of real spiritual substance inside, He is love. And He loves YOU.

You don't need to perform. You don't have to pray. You don't have to go to church. You don't have to believe in Him. You don't have to get your act together. You don't have to do one shouldagottaoughta. You don't have to be nice to anybody. You don't have to obey the law or keep the commandments. You don't have to do squat. Because He IS LOVE! And because He can't do or be anything else, it doesn't matter what you do or be. You will never stop being loved.

So go be and do however you want to be or do. You won't impress Him. He already thinks you are the next best thing to sliced bread. He already grins from ear to ear, simply because you exist. He already knows you are wonderful. He already carries your picture around in His wallet and shows it to anybody He can find. He already can't wait to brag about you to all the relatives. He already knows you are worth dying for and redeeming back to Himself.

So I come back to one of those infamous questions I am always asking. If you are so profoundly loved, how do you want to live? It's your choice. No strings attached.

© 2007 Mike & Laura Ege, www.OutsideEdgeCoaching.com

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