God Truly IS Mercy and Love

by Kathryn Mulderink
(excerpt from "His Suffering and Ours")

We often have a subtle fear that God cannot possibly be THAT good and merciful, a fear that if we abandon ourselves to Him and think only about His goodness, we're "cheating."

"Happy, happy, Jesus is good so we don't have to worry."

We hang on to our guilt like a badge, protesting that we are ignoring/escaping our own guilt (which is so much easier to believe than our own innate worth!) if we accept forgiveness and refuse to think about it anymore.

But it is not like that. We should not fear or deny God's mercy and love. If we trust Jesus to be Truth, we should be able to give our fears to Him. God is a God of truth. He will not deceive. He is not some fictitious "Happyland" where we just set our true selves aside and pretend to be better than we are. He knows what we are. He loves us anyway, as we are. And He knows what we need to become what He created us to be. And He is waiting for us to accept His love and be willing - for the sake of that love - to do whatever it will take to become what He created us to be. And truly, it's more than we imagine.

All that guilt and shame to which we cling so that we won't forget our own worthlessness is misplaced. We use our past to beat ourselves up and keep ourselves convinced that God cannot possibly love us. But God DOES love us, even loves us past our sin, and is waiting for us - waiting for us - to reject our sin, accept His forgiveness, embrace His love above all things. Then He can heal us of our woundedness. If we focus on the truth (not the hope, not the wish) that Jesus loves us, that the Father really loves us, RIGHT NOW, until it becomes part of us, we are much closer to becoming our true selves in Him.

Repeat: God really loves me.
God REALLY loves me.
God really LOVES me.
God really loves ME.

Really. It's fact, not fiction. This can be difficult to accept fully, with all its implications. But once we can really believe it, everything will look different, including ourselves. We will then realize that the things for which we condemn ourselves are not usually the things for which God will condemn us, that all sin is forgivable as long as we have breath, that His grace and love can transform us beyond our past sin, beyond the feelings of guilt and shame behind which we hide ourselves. And then, from this place of wholeness, we will begin to see things more clearly, and begin to grow toward a true fullness of life in Him. He will always show us what we really need to be complete in His eyes.

And no other eyes matter.

Kathryn Mulderink is the author of To Sing You Must Exhale and His Suffering and Ours Visit her blog at http://kathryntherese.blogspot.com

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