“To understand God’s love is to mirror it in the midst of a world full of hatred.”
“How does the thief on the cross fit into your theology? No baptism, no communion, no confirmation, no speaking in tongues, no mission trip, no volunteerism, and no church clothes. He couldn’t even bend his knees to pray. He didn’t say the sinner’s prayer and among other things, he was a thief. Jesus didn’t take away his pain, heal his body, or smite the scoffers. Yet it was a thief who walked into heaven the same hour as Jesus simply by believing. He had nothing more to offer other than his belief that Jesus was who he said he was. No spin from brilliant theologians. No ego or arrogance. No Shiny lights, skinny jeans, or crafty words. No haze machine, donuts, or coffee in the entrance. Just naked dying man on a cross unable to even fold his hands to pray.”
Makes us realize, what saves you is Him! Not exactly what people do in His name, we forget that, and we wander onto a life of emotional contentment with some props or shows, it is Christ who saves. That God in eternity looked upon and saw my fallenness, my pride, my sins and my worries and my weirdness, and my insecurities, and my troubles and my everything and said, “I want that man in my family” and I will pay anything to get in my family, and that is some love! That is the love that saves us, that is the Love that sets us free and the love that sets us apart.
“To truly try means to accept God’s love, his healing, to accept the world can be ugly, but your heart doesn’t have to be. It takes courage, Finley the warrior. You haven’t held on to your anger and bitterness in search of healing, but as a banner of your hurt. Because it’s real and visible and strong, ” she said. “But so is God’s love and so are those arms he’s holding out for you.” “But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God’s love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin to be sincere. His sincerity is based on confidence, not in his own illusions about himself, but in the endless, unfailing mercy of God.”
As writer CS Lewis once wrote, “The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a sun house does not attract the sun because it is bright but becomes bright because the son shines on it.”
“God is love. He didn’t need us. But he wanted us. And that is the most amazing thing”