An Undeserved Love
It is just so hard to even begin to understand the love that Jesus Christ has for us. I was sitting here doing my quiet time and I was listening to this new Chris Tomlin song called “Jesus Loves Me” and I was just taken aback by the way that He loves us. There is truly no way for us to even begin to comprehend the beginning of GOD’s love simply because we have nothing to compare it to. We have nobody else in the world that constantly pursues us no matter what we do and will stop at nothing to show us the love that He has for us. I was just sitting in awe of this love because there is nothing else like it. I constantly turn away from Him, forget about Him, get prideful, and just sin but no matter what He is there. No matter what I do, the love of Jesus pursues me and pursues my heart.
I can completely understand why people who do not know Jesus cannot comprehend this because I know Him and I am not even close to comprehending it. Why? Why would someone who knows who I am still pursue me like He does? Why would someone who knows all of my thoughts and all of my actions pursue me like I am a prize? I’m not a prize, I’m not worthy of GOD’s pursuit, but He pursues me. In our world it definitely seems too good to be true that someone could know everything about us and still have this incredible, passionate desire to love us and pursue us, but it is true.
And “pursue” is not even close to a strong enough word to use here. He doesn’t just pursue us, He comes after us like there is nothing else in the world that could stop Him or even slow Him down. He is in our face with His love so much that if we truly stopped for just one second and sought it out it would be impossible to miss. To just look around at the wonder of creation, to pray to the GOD of the universe who hears us, and most of all to think about the Cross and the hope that it gives us for eternity. He’s not just pursuing us He’s doing something similar to pursuing us, but the word for what He is doing has not been invented yet, so we have to use “pursue” just because it is all we have.
We can compare this love to many different types of love that we have in our lives right now, but none of them even come close to helping us understand GOD’s love. Our love for our spouse is far from pure. I try every day to put Jessica’s needs above my own but I fail every single day. Every day, at some point, I become selfish and think about myself more than her…Jesus never did. I think about the love that my parents have for me, and as thankful as I am for it, they will freely admit that their love does not match the love of GOD. I think about the love that we have for our 34 children at All Things New, and oh how I wish it were pure. How I wish I was more patient, wiser, and just better at loving them the way that they need to be loved. And beside that, their love for me oftentimes surpasses my love for them and they teach me something new about love almost every day.
But this is the problem. We have no reference point. There is nothing in the world that can truly teach us about how GOD loves us. So what do we do in light of a love that we cannot even begin to understand? We find our joy in it! And I don’t mean that we get a little happy when we sing a song about the love of GOD. I don’t mean we tell GOD we love Him in our prayers just because it is what we always say. And I don’t mean that we tell other people how much we love GOD but when they’re not around we don’t say a word to Him. I mean we wake up every day thankful that GOD loves us so much that we will get to spend our eternity seeking after the true depths of that love and we will never ever ever ever truly understand it. Everyday for eternity there will be a new aspect of GOD’s love for us that we didn’t know before and we will find a new depth of joy in that love that we never knew was there. And then the next day we will find a new aspect of His love and we will be surprised by the love of GOD for all eternity, and we will find new levels of joy everyday for all of eternity as we dive into the infinite love that GOD has for us. I have to tell you, I don’t deserve this love, but I am so thankful that I get to experience it.