I’ve been pondering God’s love and grace of late, and today I stumbled upon a nugget in a post on CWO by Kari, which caused me to literally gasp with delight at its truth and resonance. It is something we followers of Jesus forget too easily—and a truth that too few grasp at all:I became intimately acquainted with the truth that God's love for me is not dependent upon my Bible study, my prayers, or my attendance at church. Each has its place in being a follower of Christ, indeed. But God does not love me any more or any less for how much time I spend in one or how much I neglect another.Oh, Amen. Amen.
In "good" times, my spiritual development may wax or wane depending upon how much time I devote to things of the Kingdom. In "bad" times, my attitude towards those struggles will likely be affected greatly by how much time I devoted to things of the Kingdom in times past. But in the worst of times I learned in so personal a way that my life in Christ is not dependent upon me, but upon Christ alone. In difficulty—indeed the worst of difficulties—I was granted an opportunity to grasp and to cling to the promise that nothing can separate me from the love of Christ:"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword. As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 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 creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." —Romans 8:35-39
(Image: by Weird Beard at flickr.com)