Valentine’s Day is always a day I look forward to. A perpetual lover of love, it’s a day perfectly designed for me to reflect on not just who I love, but the love I receive from others. Especially the love I receive from Jesus.
I was preparing the preschool lessons for my church this week. The children were to learn about Jesus and Matthew. You’ll remember that Matthew was a tax collector, which back then were hated by the Jewish people. They were often dishonest, but they were also employed by the despised Roman government. Not a very popular bunch. Despite his lack of social appeal, Jesus hand-picked Matthew to be one of his closest friends. A disciple.
What an amazing love! Jesus doesn’t care if you are the most popular one in your group, the best dressed or even if you have it all together. He’s not waiting for you to become something better. Something cleaner. Something more devoted. If he was waiting for any of us to be perfect before he showered his extravagant love on us, none of us would ever receive it! We can never be good enough for Jesus. But we also can never be bad enough for him to reject us. If we wander off, he still seeks us. He always wants us. What JOY we can have in that!
Stop waiting to be perfect in order to allow yourself to be perfectly loved.
Jesus can handle your sin. Remember, he overcame it on the cross. Jesus doesn’t care about your past. He’s only interested in your future with him in Heaven. Doubts? Fears? Addictions? Strongholds? None of it is a surprise to him and none of it is something he can’t handle. None of it is something he doesn’t want to hold for you. I think the bigger disappointment for Jesus is not our sin, but our thoughts that our sins should hold us back from him. This negates the cross all-together. This makes sin greater than the one who overcame it on your behalf. This belittles his abundant love for us and grieves his heart. It’s a toxic and dangerous lie we buy into all the time. Our mess is never something Jesus can’t clean up.
It’s so vital to remember that we were not created in order to be anything. We weren’t created to be tax collectors. We aren’t here to be moms. Or a spouse. Our greatest calling is not teaching, or crunching numbers, selling real-estate or managing a business. We need to realize we were made for the soul purpose of being loved by our Creator. Perfectly. That’s all. That’s it!
Why do we complicate it so?
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