some thoughts
on God's
Love from
Lucinda
Secrest McDowell
I tried to be perfect.
I thought that if I DID and SAID and READ
and PROFESSED everything RIGHT
then I would be loved ~ by others and by God.
But I blew it.
Lots of times.
And I'll bet you've blown it before too.....
When we blow it in our human relationships,
we often find ourselves rejected and tossed aside.
Which makes us try even harder to be perfect.
But we can't be perfect. Only one person was ~ Jesus!
"Oh the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless free,
Rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!
Underneath me, all around me, is the current of His love,
Leading onward, leading homeward to that glorious rest above."
~S. Trevor Francis 1890
Do you think that when you've blown it God rejects you too?
It's only natural that we would attribute human love qualities
to God, since that is all we've ever experienced here on earth.
We
don't have to please God to earn His love,
but when we know His love, our greatest desire is to please Him.
"Whatever I said I knew was true about God, what I really believed
was that my effort could wrest from Him a love and acceptance
based on my performance. I could not receive grace --- the
marvelous, utterly surprising grace of God --- until I stepped off
the treadmill and waited with empty, needy hands. I could not hear
His voice --- strong, inviting, and steady --- until I could
separate Him from the nagging critic I carried inside me.
Until I disconnected my longing to be loved from my efforts to please."
~Paula Rinehart, author of Perfect Every Time
God
is PERFECT LOVE and He loves you
today
not because you are worthy of His love,
and not because you have done something to earn His love,
but simply because you are His Child.
"But here's the good news - God loves you for free. You have
nothing to purchase or prove, no one to impress. What Jesus
says about you is your 'bottom line.' You are loved, accepted
and not alone. You are considered worthwhile and capable ---
by the King of the Universe! What else, who else matters?
Healthy behaviors result from an identity that's healthy and fully
based upon God's performance on our behalf. You can
learn to perform out of the fullness that is yours in Christ."
~Jeff van Vonderan in Tired Of Trying To Measure Up
God says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love,
I have gathered you with lovingkindness."
Jeremiah 31.3
How vast is God's love for you and me?
We cannot even begin to fathom it, as this hymn depicts.
"The
love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever
tell;
It goes beyond the highest star, and reaches to the lowest hell;
O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong!
It shall for evermore endure the saints' and angels' song.
Could we with ink the ocean fill, & were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky."
~F.M. Lehman 1917
But I like to think of it this way,
"God loves you so much,
that if He had a refrigerator,
your
picture 
would
be on it!"
copyright 2000
Lucinda Secrest McDowell
