I want you to imagine you’ve just finished a workout and you are at the grocery store grabbing a few bits of food for your day. As you are picking out your peppers, you get the feeling that someone is watching you. You casually look around and see this gorgeous man smiling at you. You look away and then sneak another peek. He is still watching you. When he sees you look at him again, he starts to make his way over to you. You start freaking out, “Why is he heading over here? What will I say to him? Ugh, I’m all sweaty and gross! Ahhh!!”
“Hi,” he says.
“Hello,” you manage to get out.
“I just wanted to come over and tell you that you are so beautiful. I can’t seem to take my eyes off of you. Would you let me have the honor of taking you to dinner?”
“Umm, yes. That would be fine. Thank you.” You give him your number and he walks away. As he walks away, you notice many more things about him. He is not only physically perfect, but He carries himself with an unusual confidence. He is not arrogant, just confident. When he looked into your eyes, you were mesmerized. You also noticed that your eyes were the only place he looked. (Refreshing!) Your heart was beating faster and you couldn’t wait to get to know him more…
This mysterious man is Jesus. He places the offer before us like a gentleman to know him. When we let him know us, he showers us with his love. If you are like me, his unconditional love was confusing. I’d never experienced unconditional love from a man before I met Jesus. Why would someone love me that way when I’m not serving any purpose for them? Why would he be willing to endlessly shower me with gifts when I have no way to return so many favors?
There was a day, not long after I first met Jesus, when I was just weeping in prayer to God. My life was a train wreck and I needed so many hurts to be healed. Rather abruptly, I heard a different voice in my head say, “I love you.”
“What? Who was that?”
Again the voice came, “I love you.”
Then I realized it was God.
“I love you.”
“Why? Don’t you know what I’ve done?”
“I love you.”
“I’ve made so many mistakes…”
“I love you.”
I don’t have it all together.
“I love you.”
Nobody else seems to love me…
“I love you.”
“But I’ve been with too many other people…”
“I love you. I love you. I love you.”
Finally, I ran out of excuses. He continued to simply and powerfully say, “I love you.” I let those words in. Maybe for the first time in my life, I heard a man say that he loved me with no other agenda; heard the words I love you, knowing that this love was complete and not dependent upon any changes I needed to make. This love was completely different.
It changed my life. God persistently has been speaking that message of love over my life. He has revealed all the ways that He loves me and he has encouraged me to share that message with others. See, what I came to find out shortly after that first powerful encounter, is there are lots of people who say they love Jesus, but who don’t really understand how much he loves them. The tragedy with this becomes them living a good life, still trying to earn what they’ve already been given freely.
Ephesians 1:4 says, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.”
Before he made the world…I don’t know about you, but that boggles my mind. He has loved us and chosen us before he made the world, before we were born, before we could do a single thing to try to earn it – He already loved us and chose us.
He chose us.
Sweet beloved, you are loved! You are chosen! May these incredible truths sink into your heart deeply. May they embolden you to live a full and beautiful life!
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