Jesus Loves Me, This I Know

Last May I moved to Grace Adventures camp in the thriving metropolis of Mears, Michigan, population: lots of dear and squirrels.  I was there for one purpose only (or so I thought) – to earn money working in the kitchen to appease my parents desire for me to do something with my summer (after getting turned down for a position I wanted at Barakel).  My plan was to not form big attachments (because I couldn’t see myself splitting my time volunteering between two camps).  I imagine God laughed heartily at that one.  Obviously, I ended up there for longer.  I became an Ascent intern for nine months.  I had no idea how hugely God was going to impact my life in that time.  I could write pages and pages on the things I learned, struggled through, laughed about, and was hurt by, but I want to hit on one thing, an overarching theme.

I was sitting in Ben(my supervisor)’s office one day talking about some of the things I’d been dealing with lately, and he said something I don’t think I will ever forget.  “Hannah, do you believe that God loves you?  Now hold on, I know you know it in your head, but do you really believe it?”  His words knocked me flat and started a journey I had no idea I needed to take.  Somehow, over the years, God’s love had turned into an explainable, comprehensible equation.  I tend to analyze things to death.  I find the why and how behind as many things as I can.  I’ve heard all my life that God can’t not love us; it’s in His nature.  I took that as He loves us because He has to, since it’s His nature, so it’s not really love.  I didn’t actively think that in my head, but that’s what it came down to.  There were a lot of factors involved in that change of perspective, including a lot of loss and betrayal.  It just seemed to make sense with what I had experienced.

In the beginning of March, I had the amazing opportunity to attend the CCCA (Christian Camp and Conference Association) conference at Gull Lake Ministries.  God used the speaker to put a lot of the puzzle pieces in place for me to understand who I am because of Christ, how much He loves me, and what that means.  One of the things he said was this, “We understand grace; we love it for justification, that whole reality of new birth, of God and I reconciled, of all that beginning, of my becoming a new creature, all of that.  We get it…. And then over here, glorification, the end, where we get to go home….  But then every second between justification and glorification we turn God into an angry pirate who’s had too much coffee.”  I had a faulty belief (one that I’ve found many people share) that God is disappointed in me when I sin.  It only seems right.  My parents are disappointed when I don’t do something they told me to do or fail some expectation.  But you have to ask yourself this, “Can you surprise God?”  Obviously not; He’s omniscient.  Doesn’t disappointment require surprise?  Well, yes, I suppose.  But God already knew before I was born that I would mess up and fail at living for Him.  Funny, though, He died for me anyway.  God doesn’t make mistakes.  He doesn’t accidentally let people get saved and then go, “Oh great, she’s prayed the prayer?  I guess I’ll have to love her too.”  Each one of us is specifically chosen.

I’ve always understood that God paid for all my sin on the cross.  But somehow the definition of the word 'all' got mixed up somewhere.  It’s not that I sin, and it takes a second for His grace to kick in.  Everything I do was paid for before I ever do it, before I ever think about doing it, before I was ever even born.  Because of that, God can love me all the time, no matter what I do, even when I’m in complete rebellion and state of refusal.  But what does that mean?  Love is one of those words that’s been overused.  I can say I love flowers, people, my best friend, tacos, etc.  It’s also something that’s rescinded a lot.  I used to love watermelon, but now I don’t.  My parents used to love each other, but now all they do is fight.  This use of the word ‘love’ has made it very hard to understand.  It’s a highly ambiguous term nowadays.

So what does it mean for God to love me?  It means He not only cannot be disappointed by me, but He always approves of me.  He’s even proud of me, and not just when I do something right.  All the time.  It means when I am having the worst day living for Him, He’s still smiling because I’m His and all that sin is paid for and forgotten.  It means that He takes care of me and will not let anything outside of His will for my life happen to me, no matter what I do, and all of that will be for my own good.  That’s a peace-giving thought.  What else does it mean for God to love me?  It means He uses me for His perfect plan.  He doesn’t have to.  But He chooses to make me a part because He loves me.  It means He doesn’t expect me to fix my sin on my own; He stands there with His arm around me and says, “We’ll take it on together.”  It’s like He has pictures on His walls of me, and when people pass by He points and says, “Hey, that one’s mine!  Isn’t she great?”  It means He’s crazy about me.  It means He will never ever give up on me.  It means that nothing I or anyone else can do can change my standing before Him and how close we are.  Sometimes I feel like God is farther away when I sin, but He’s not.  He’s always right there – in me, around me, with me, next to me, take your pick of prepositions.  I can’t make Him go away.

It’s easy to feel like God is far away, and I have to earn my way back to Him.  Or He’s looking down on me and shaking His head saying, “Why can’t you get it right?”  But I have to remember that feelings lie.  Satan uses our feeling to ensnare us and tempt us.  The Bible says that to the exact extent that God the Father loves God the Son (Jesus), He loves me.  I’m pretty sure the Father is never disappointed in the Son.  So I have to once again adjust my feelings back to reality.  I struggle with this all the time.  I’ll mess up and start to beat myself up about it, sure that God thinks I’m an idiot, but it’s in those times that I have to remind myself of the truth.  Sometimes I have to tell myself over and over again that God loves me until it really sinks in and grips me.  But I still forget.  I fall back into the same old patterns.  I have to keep coming back and reminding myself of how awesome and amazing the love my Savior lavishes on me is.  But He doesn’t have to be reminded.  He never forgets, never changes, never alters course.

So many people don’t realize all of this.  So many people live like they have to please God, have to pay Him back somehow for what He’s done for us – even Christians.  Especially Christians.  But we can’t pay Him back.  The only way we can do anything good is by His grace, so by trying to pay Him back, we either get farther in debt or we fail completely without His help.  It’s a hopeless cause.  So what can we do?  Rejoice!  We are loved beyond compare, and God has an endless line of grace credit to help us live for Him that He never expects to be paid back.

I think one of the reasons this faulty belief system is so prevalent is the scriptures we choose to focus on.  American Christians’ favorite verse: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.”  Loved.  Past tense.  Gave.  Past tense.  Not perish…have eternal life.  What we get from salvation.  Sure, that’s pretty much what you need to know to be saved, but there’s so much more than that.  “For I am convinced that neither height nor depth nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come, or any other created thing is able to separate us (even for a second!) from the love of God that is in (present tense) Christ Jesus, our Lord.”

Jesus loves me (present tense, continuing on infinitely), this I know.