The words streamed out of my car radio and embedded themselves deep in my soul as David Crowder shared about his new album, American Prodigal.
“God doesn’t love our future self more than He loves us right now.”
My present self often dwells on my mistakes, things I’ve said or things I wished I said, actions I’ve taken or those I wish I had. I berate myself for not being the person that I think I should be. And although I know the forgiveness of God, I also carry a hope that someday when I get it all right, I’ll make God smile more than I do right now.
And that is doing God a great disservice.
We perceive love within our limits of time and space. But God IS love. And He IS eternal. So His love is the same past, present, and future – a future He already knows, by the way.
Our natural love is mercurial, changing with emotions and circumstances. It grows and diminishes. And it’s conditional. But His love is based on the fact that He created us. It’s unconditional. Nothing we do or don’t do changes His love for us.
So to think that God will love us more in the future when we finally get our act together is to misunderstand the limitless, timeless, unrestricted, complete love that God has for you and for me.
God loves us when we don’t deserve it. He loves us the same when we are behaving and thinking as we should. Because we are performance oriented, we experience approval and rejection based on our standards or someone else’s.
But God’s standard is His Word. We will never meet His standards. And knowing that, He loved us so much that He gave His Son that whosoever believes in Him will have eternal life with Him.
Can you right now close your eyes, breathe in deep, sense His abiding adoring presence, and thank Him for His eternal boundless love?
Give thanks to the God of heaven!
His love is eternal. Ps. 136:26
