Love Despite

Have you ever felt that you disappointed God? Have you ever worried that you let Him down?

You haven’t, you didn’t and you never could.

So often we approach relationships this way but God never does. He knew every time you would stumble, every time you would sin, every mistake, every willful bad choice and He never turned His heart away.

God doesn’t build relationships on expectations or hopes. He paved the way for us to be in relationship with Him because He loved us despite our failures. He doesn’t have expectations that we reach some hurdle so we can’t disappoint Him. He knows us. You never let Him down because He is always there waiting to pick us back up. He knew we would need Him.

Before any of these things He chose to love you. Knowing that your choices, mistakes and sins were going to bring hurt and pain to His heart. He loved you before, and in the midst of those actions. He loves you beyond them too.

We often struggle with walking freely in and truly understanding His love because we have a hard time forgiving ourselves for times when we falter.  We have turned to our own understanding rather than who He is and who He says we are.

Surely we are called to repent if we have sinned. His love is not a free pass to sin. We are called to be like Him and He is holy. We need His love to live in holiness and He knew that before even one of our days were lived.

God has already paid the price for those times and is ready to walk forward with us. We often live as if we are sitting in a jail cell as a penalty for our sin and that God is the jailer. In truth He is standing by the open cell door, having paid your penalty and waiting for you to join Him to walk out of the prison.

He is not waiting to walk with us as a scolded child He is ashamed of but rather as a King walking His child into the future He has planned for us.

I pray that God will reveal the depth of His love to each of us.