“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
For His mercy endures forever.” Psalm 136:1 NKJV
At times God can feel distant, intimidating to approach. This typically happens to me when I haven’t been spending enough time with Him or when I’ve committed a sin and repented but, still feel the sting of guilt. This distance from God can feel too overwhelming to get over and then creates a vicious feedback cycle of feeling too inadequate to approach God, causing the distance to feel even bigger.
The Bible tells us, though, that God’s grace and love for us are more than enough to cover our sins. He loves us so much that even when we were in our transgressions, Jesus still died for us (Romans 5:8). As He was being crucified, He still prayed for the forgiveness of those who persecuted Him. That is the greatness of His love for us, and this love never changes.
The Magnitude of the Gospel
If you have been a Christian for some time, like me, you are very well acquainted with the Gospel: God sent His Son into the world to live a perfect life, be crucified on a cross as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins, rise from the dead after three days in the grave and ascend into Heaven. It’s the most powerful demonstration of love and hits very deeply, especially in the moment when we first meet God and surrender our lives to Him.
As time goes on and we experience affliction and hardships, it can become easy to forget the magnitude of the Gospel and how powerful God’s love is for us. You may even begin to feel as if God has forgotten you, or He is no longer listening. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, many times, these trials that God allows us to endure are an expression of His loving work in our lives. Through these trials, God sanctifies us and molds us to become more like Christ (James 1:2-4). Nevertheless, no matter what we go through in this life, the Gospel never changes and its gravity for humanity remains the same. Hebrews 13:8 says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (NKJV).
The Sufficiency of the Grace of God
In the throes of life, in our imperfection and struggles with sin, in our struggle with our inadequacies and insecurities, feelings like we aren’t “doing enough” or that we ourselves are not enough, God’s love for us covers all of that. Because of Christ’s sacrifice, we do not have to earn God’s acceptance, which is great news for us. Imagine having to earn salvation and acceptance by our own merit. Undoubtedly, we would all fall short. As believers we have made the decision to place our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord. Now, we are called to pursue righteousness by abiding by God’s words, spreading the Gospel whenever we can, and fostering a relationship with Him. We are not called to be perfect at all. In fact, our weaknesses are what draws us closer to Him.
In 2 Corinthians 12:8-9, Paul talked about a personal struggle he dealt with, which he described as a “thorn in his flesh” and asked God to remove three times. He says, “And He [God] said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (NKJV). We don’t know exactly what that thorn was that afflicted Apostle Paul, but we know that it seemed to be God’s will that Paul lived with it. And in his weakness and imperfection, Paul leaned on God all the more.
The Unchanging Love of God
Our feelings shift and change depending on our circumstances and how our lives look to us. These feelings rise with every success and celebration and fall with every perceived failure and struggle. But what never changes is God’s love for us. When I contemplate God’s love for me I go straight to the Gospel, remembering that from the day Jesus was born, to the day he was crucified, to the day he rose again, to our present day, the magnitude of this occurrence never changes. And God’s sacrificial, providential, righteous love, too, never changes. We must hold on to this truth especially when our feelings tell us the opposite.
I want to end with this: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, NKJV).
Hold on to this verse whenever the enemy tries to make you forget how deep, how wide, and how great God’s love for you was, is, and forever will be.
