ABIDING IN HIS LOVE

“But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  This is a most stunning claim! If God loved us this much while we were still sinners, He surely loves us now, and has loved us every moment of our sin soaked life. Repentance, confession, our foreordained good works, ministry, literally everything we do as Kingdom people cannot and will never merit the Father’s love – worthiness is simply impossible with inestimable love. The love of God is the foundation of who and what we are in Christ... all we are and do, irrespective of our not quite transformed nature. We can get caught up in doing things for God, including waging the good fight of faith against our fleshly nature, and fail to do the most important thing of all... receive and remain in our Father’s love – abide in His love. Some will say God does not look upon us when our garments are stained and spotted with sin, that God does not love what He sees – that our sin grieves Him. But we must remember, we are not our sin. And, just as surely as God in His justice hates our sin, He loves us – we are not our sin! Our loving Daddy sees in us the righteousness of His Beloved Son which we wear like a cloak, and His heart overflows with love. Submission to the Lordship of Christ and death to our fleshly nature are inevitable to those who will to continue God’s walk of faith, for this is God’s Eternal Purpose... our transformation into perfect beings for His perfect re-creation, the new heaven and new earth. The pathway home will be difficult – dying hurts – and Self will not go quietly. But we must never forget our lofty, beautiful heavenly calling in Christ Jesus: “Be imitators of God, as beloved children.” We don’t imitate God to become His children... We imitate God because we are His children, dearly-loved... sin nature and all.

(Rom. 5:8; Eph. 5:1)

WE ARE NOT OUR SIN