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Love beyond what we deserve


It’s rare to find anything positive or encouraging in the news these days. Stories of murder, war, rape, genocide, sex trafficking, domestic violence, custody battles, kidnapping, celebrity divorce, and the like don’t exactly leave us with feelings of peaceful happiness. Rather, they leave us with feelings of anger, fear, and despair. For many, these images and stories just reinforce a belief that God cannot exist, and if He does He is a menacing tyrant with no love for humanity. 

But I see a very different world. I see a world where there exists a God who loves way beyond what humanity deserves. A world with a God who despite our hatred and maliciousness towards not only one another, but ourselves and the Creator-God who made us, chose to pay the penalty for our rebellious and destructive actions. Somehow in the midst of the destruction, hatred, selfishness, and depravity, God is quietly whispering, “While you were dead in your sins, I died for you” (Romans 5:8). And because love cannot be forced, it cannot be provoked, it must be freely chosen, He is heartbroken to say to the people He desperately loves and wants to redeem from their treachery, “I am giving You over to your depraved thinking” (Romans 1:28).

 And so, the violence and insanity that we witness is not proof that God does not love or that God does not care, it is proof that He is lovingly and patiently waiting for the world to receive what He offers: life to fullest; freedom from our chains of pain, addiction, and brokenness and that we constantly turning our back on Him and rejecting His beautiful grace, mercy, and salvation.  Our predicament is the result of our selfish will to continue in our sin instead of taking the hand of the One who has already provided a way out.

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