A love that will not let me go…

I marvel daily at a love that will not let me go.

• Daily I’m stunned at how God uses my continued disobediences to give me a deeper understanding of his grace.
• Daily, I must mourn my lack of righteousness – mourn how it grieves God’s heart.  But then, I must follow up that “mourning and confession” with the knowledge that God loves me so much that he’s even sovereign over my habitual sins and uses these failings of mine to shape and strengthen not just me but the people around me whom I sin against (my husband, my children, the lady at the grocery story, my friends, the policeman, my neighbor, the lawn guy, etc).
• Daily I’m humbled by the fact that, even more than how my sin grieves God’s heart, he wants me to know with certainty that his compassions never fail and that they are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23, emphasis mine) and that his faithfulness is spectacular even when my faithlessness is continuous (2 Timothy 2:13, emphasis mine).
• Daily I’m kept from guilt and shame because I know that the Lord knows and remembers that I’m nothing but dust and incredibly weak (Psalm 103:14, emphasis mine)!

Now some might say ‘isn’t this kind of scandalous grace a license to sin because I know he’ll always forgive me?’  No way!  In fact, I’ve learned it’s just the opposite.  I learned that this type of unrelenting, ever-keeping, never-changing love for me sends me literally running back to the open arms of my Savior with a renewed desire to serve him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength!

No, this love, mercy, forgiveness and grace makes me want to sin less, not more. This is the pure, unadulterated gospel. It’s beautiful, it’s perfect and it’s why I love Him so much.