I don't know what it is about the church or human culture that has convinced so many of us that faith is more about earning our way. So many times I think if I do this and that, I'll be enough to earn my "ticket" to heaven. Yet I forget about all the other things I do that counteract the "good" I did. And I forget the things I didn't do that I should have. So really I don't want God to make a list of my "goods" vs "bads".
I was watching Pastor Joseph Prince recently and he shared how in America, we have come to believe that if we do good, we get good. "The American Dream" And yet God showed that we do bad, and we get good.
Not because we deserve good, it's because He is good. Because really we all fail. Every single day.
GRACE.
It's really a mind-blowing concept to understand. And I guess that just reveals that we don't have the capacity to understand our God. But isn't that awesome?!
Bella has been in this phase where she asks me if I'll love her in different scenarios. Will I love her when she's old? Will I love her if she does something bad? And my response is always yes. I'm trying to get her to accept that there is nothing she could do that could make me not love her.
I wonder how much God wants us to understand that.
The story of the prodigal son. The father didn't demand that the son apologize and pay his punishment before the father accepted him back. The son returned and the father celebrated. In fact the father ran to meet him. And hug him. The kid who threw away every gift the father gave him.
My prayer is that we could somehow grasp how much God loves us.
And that it would change EVERYTHING.
And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. ~Ephesians 3:18
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