Constant Love

Romans 8:38-39: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

What pit have you fallen into (or are stuck in)? Are you picturing God far off in the distance, shaking His head in disapproval, tapping His foot as if to say, "Seriously, you fell into that same sin AGAIN? How long are you going to hang out there this time? I wish you would get your act together. I'm so disappointed. That's it, I've had it! I'm out of here until you clean yourself up." Some have such a terrible misconception of God as if He only loves and approves of His children when they are following all of the rules and doing "right"; and we only have a certain number of chances to "get it right" before He bails out on us and deems us a lost cause.

Unfortunately, that is how most of us are. Fortunately, God is nothing like carnal man. If we could truly stop sinning on our own and clean ourselves up, would Christ have needed to die? How do we get out of our sin if God abandons us and does not sovereignly guide and lead us through and out of our sins? Know this, God does not lead us into sin, nor does He tempt us into it. We are tempted by our own carnal desires, and choose, with our own free will, to act upon them. We remove our hand from our Fathers, not the other way around.

But He has not abandoned you! If you have fallen on your face, returned to the muck and the mire, to the very same sin that has been luring and haunting you for what seems like forever, know that God still and will always love you, and is RIGHT there with you! He will never leave you, nor forsake you. You are His, and no one that the Father has given to our Lord will He lose! And even if we make our bed in Sheol, He is right there! - Psalms 139:8. “If anyone be in Christ they are a new creation. The old has passed away, behold all things have become new.”

When God looks at you, He sees you just as He sees His Son. He loves, values and approves of you, and that does not change! His love, acceptance and approval of you does not fluctuate with your performance or behavior. It is not measured by how good we are or determined by how well we "keep the rules". Many would say, "If people believe that, does it not give them a free ticket to sin?!" And I answer, only if they are not true born-again believers in Christ. It is God's unconditional love and acceptance that our souls so desperately crave. God demands obedience and holiness. “We are to be perfect as He is perfect.” – Matthew 5:48.

When we truly understand the love of the Father for us, chains fall off, captives are set free, and true believers, empowered by that pure love, are compelled to love Him back and follow His commands naturally and effortlessly through "want to" rather than "have to". This is the law of grace. Nothing you ever do will take our Lord by surprise. If you have fallen back into sin, instead of running from Him in shame and condemnation, fall into His loving, merciful arms. In Matthew 11:28: Christ said this, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Open your heart and allow Him to guide you into His rest as He transforms those broken places of your soul into beautiful stories of redemption, and watch as He uses your once broken vessel to do mighty and miraculous works to help restore the lost and broken to Himself. "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Rom 8:1

Listen, Jesus does the cleaning and we do the leaning. On Him. We cannot clean ourselves up. If we could we would still be dead in our sins. God is the ultimate life-giver and life-changer. We must seek God’s face, seek God’s wisdom and His constant unending love so that we learn to hate sin and to desire His righteousness. Anytime man deviates from God’s plan and purpose, we fail; every time. Since the Garden of Eden moral decay has been the compass of fallen mankind.