Ephesians 3:17-18

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

I read this scripture in a devotional I got this morning (haven't read it yet, didn't get past this scripture) and my mind was blown. My mind was open.  My mind was blown open.  ARE YOU GETTING IT?  Something suddenly made sense.

When we want to show a person how to let go and find our loving God, we CAN'T start with "you did this and this is why you need to be forgiven, so that God can love you.  You are dirty and need something to clean you, so that then you can be loved." It's not true, God loves you now.  Period.

Instead we should start with "JESUS LOVES YOU, HE DIED FOR YOU, HE DIED FOR WHO YOU ARE RIGHT NOW, EVEN IF YOU NEVER CHANGE.  EVEN IF YOU NEVER LOVE HIM, HE WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU AND HE WILL NEVER CHANGE HIS MIND."

Let's show them His love FIRST, tell them they are loved FIRST, get that in their heads FIRST.  So that above all else, they are rooted and grounded in LOVE.  They will always fall back on HIS LOVE instead of THEIR MISTAKES.  Present love first, because that is what came first.  He didn't create our mistakes, then a body, then love us.  He knit us together, He held onto us while forming us, loving us by creating us.  He wasn't thinking of our mistakes or how we would disappoint Him, He was just loving us.  ARE YOU GETTING IT?

When Zoe messes us, I want her to then run to ME as her mommy to love her and tell her it's going to be ok. I don't want her to run back to what she has done to find comfort there.

Undo them with His love and then tell them the rest of the good news.  That they can die to themselves right now, and rise up a new creature.  Literally the person they were before is gone.  A NEW CREATION growing in the soil of love.  God created us and after Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, He knew He would have to do it again by sending His son.  And He still stuck around.  He isn't leaving.

2 Cor 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the                       old has gone, the new has come!

Romans 12:1-2

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

YOU ARE WORTH IT!

He loves you in a way, we cannot comprehend, so FULLY and holding nothing back.  What would it feel like if we accepted it?  

Be rooted in His love because that is where you will find the strength you need to press on.  

Much love,

C