The other night I was putting Charisse (my three year old little girl to bed) and I told her that I love her. She looked me right in the eyes and told me, “I love you too daddy.”
I then told her, “Charisse…I love you more than you could ever imagine!”
She said, “what does imagine mean?”
So I told her, “basically I love you bigger than you could ever think about or dream.”
Her eyes got really wide and she looked at me with the most serious look I’ve ever seen on her face and then asked me, “do you love me more than 18 dollars?”
STOP—18 dollars, that is HUGE in her world. Seriously, 18 dollars is about as big as she could imagine…and when I told her that I loved her so much more than 18 dollars she had the biggest smile on her face…it absolutely amazed her that my love for her was greater than something that she thought was of so much value.
While I was walking down the stairs after leaving her room I was laughing at how “cute” that moment was until I felt the Lord move in my heart and show me that me trying to comprehend His love for me is like Charisse trying to comprehend my love for her…my mind literally could never even conceive it! (See Ephesians 3:17-19)
God loves His children…NOT based on their PERFORMANCE but rather as His POSTION as His child.
And…if you belong to Jesus then God’s love for you is more powerful that the sin that seems to haunt you…
- God loves you even though you are wrestling through an addiction!
- God loves you despite the abortion.
- God loves you even though the divorce was finalized.
- God loves you even though you can’t get that particular season from your past out of your mind.
- God loves you even though you rejected His love and sought to be religious to gain His approval.
- God loves you even though you turned your back on Him and ran as hard as you could.
He loves you because YOU are HIS CHILD (Romans 8:38-39)...and that love He has for us is greater than anything we could imagine or fathom. When we try to describe His love we wind up saying really silly things like, “God, do you love me more than 18 dollars?” To which He replies to us that we have NO IDEA!
He gave His SON to pay for our sins…that’s UNBELIEVABLE love! Because, honestly, if someone told me it would take the life of my daughter to pay for your sins, well, sorry, you would be in hell! BUT God, IN HIS mercy sent Jesus to absorb His wrath in our place…NOT because we deserved it, but because of His unbelievable love. (See Romans 5:6-8)
His love causes me to be in awe of Him…how HE could love me not BECAUSE of who I am, but in spite of who I am…and love me more than my greatest sin!
I’m in awe of a God who loves like that!