| <Jesus Loves Us without Condition> |
| Shalom,
Recently a friend of mine sent me this article which I feel will help to bring out the points which I would like to share with you here. In fact when I first read the article, it reminded me of a friend who had a similar experience. Quote - A man and his girlfriend were married. It was a large celebration. All of their friends and family came to see the lovely ceremony and to partake of the festivities and celebrations. A wonderful time was had by all. The bride was gorgeous in her white wedding gown and the groom was very dashing in his black tuxedo. Everyone could tell that the love they had for each other was true. A few months later, the wife comes to the husband with a proposal: "I read in a magazine, a while ago, about how we can strengthen our marriage." she offered. "Each of us will write a list of the things that we find a bit annoying with the other person. Then, we can talk about how we can fix them together and make our lives happier together." The husband agreed. So each of them went to a separate room in the house and thought of the things that annoyed them about the other. They thought about this question for the rest of the day and wrote down what they came up with. The next morning, at the breakfast table, they decided that they would go over their lists. "I'll start," offered the wife. She took out her list. It had many items on it. Enough to fill 3 pages, in fact. As she started reading the list of the little annoyances, she noticed that tears were starting to appear in her husband's eyes. What's wrong?" she asked. "Nothing" the husband replied, "keep reading your list." The wife continued to read until she had read all three pages to her husband. She neatly placed her list on the table and folded her hands over the top of it. "Now, you read your list and then we'll talk about the things on both of our lists." She said happily. Quietly the husband stated, "I don't have anything on my list. I think that you are perfect the way that you are. I don't want you to change anything for me. You are lovely and wonderful and I wouldn't want to try and change anything about you." The wife, touched by his honesty and the depth of his love for her and his acceptance of her, turned her head and wept. - Unquote Have you ever wondered about the story there? The Bible tells us of the precious relationship between the Lord Jesus Christ and her Bride, the Church of which you and I are members collectively. So deep is His love for all mankind that "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" ( Romans 5: 8 ). God did not set any conditions for us to comply before He loves us. If He had given us those conditions, we would have failed miserably "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." ( Romans 3: 23 ). And the punishment for failure to meet those conditions would have been death. "For the wages of sins death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." ( Romans 6: 23 ) Not only did He not set any pre-conditions before we are able to approach Him; He actually gave us an open invitation to become members of His Royal Family. As long as we believe in Jesus and accept Him into our hearts, the Holy Spirit will come in and make His residence there. When we believe in Jesus, the Bible says that God calls us His children and we become joint-heirs with Jesus Who is our elder brother. What a privilege! What an honor! The apostle Paul went on further to tell us in his letter
to the Ephesians Church in Ephesians 2: 4 - 9 Only when we realized the depth of His love for us that we respond and love Him in return. Like the story above, Jesus did not draft out a list of the changes He wants to see in our lives as part of the covenant relationship. In fact, He loves us without conditions. So let us respond to His love and so delight the Father's heart. Tell Him of your love for Him in the following prayer. Our Heavenly Father, thank you for the great love You have
for me by sending Your One and Only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, to come
into this world and to die for my sins. Thank you Father for the unconditional
love that You have for me and that by believing in Jesus and receiving
Him into my life, I am now Your Child, a joint-heir with Christ of all
the riches and blessings that await me both here on Earth and in the age
to come. If you prayed the prayer for the first time in your life, let me congratulate and welcome you into His family. I encourage you to join a local church as soon as possible and learn more about His love for you. With Jesus on our side, who can come against us? The Lord blesses you and keeps you, Shalom, |