Truth Bows Down to Unconditional Love and Grace

While sitting and journaling in my quiet place this morning, I got this overwhelming impression   from The Lord, "Tell them how much I love them, tonight”!  Immediate emotion surfaced in my heart.  I thought, "I can't Lord!" That is such a huge subject and I don't even hardly get the unconditional love thing for myself!!  What if I screw it up? Who am I to tell them?"  So I prayed right then and there.  "I'm Yours Lord and you love me just because you love me, because you love me, because you love me." 

So I guess I'll start right where He has shown me His unconditional love just this very week. He revealed something about His love that I'd never seen before. I had a big "aha" moment while I was in the depths of feeling bad about myself Thursday early morning.

I woke up on that particular morning feeling really bad about myself. In my tired and self-centered mood the evening before, I had hurt my husband's feelings. I justified myself by thinking, "Well, what I said. It’s the truth". I took my miserable self before The Lord in my quiet time and told him how sorry I was and how bad I felt. I even wrote a heartfelt apology email to Miguel. But, I was going into sort of a spiral of feeling poorly about myself until The Lord brought to my mind 

Romans 8:1 

 "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." 

Now...no condemnation. Yep that's it, I was feeling totally condemned. So I spoke the verse out loud to myself all alone in the house and just laid my head back and let it sink in. It's for me ...it's for now!  It's for this immediate failing. I instantly felt comforted. God loves me and will help me and forgives me and washes me clean. He will always redeem my poor choices if I bring them to Him. You're probably thinking well, selfishness...come on, Keely.  So let's up the anty...for the sake of this teaching. What if I'd committed adultery that night and I'd already had 5 husbands and was living with the 6th. What if I'd sacrificed my firstborn to a god like Molech, or rather in our culture ...aborted my baby last night at the local clinic?  Would I still be able to lay back my head in repentance and say the same thing? I'm forgiven and God loves me and there is now...no condemnation?  Yes, a resounding Yes, Yes, Yes!  His love is unconditional and his forgiveness is irrevocable and his grace covers all my sin. Not just the more “acceptable” sins we can discuss in Bible Study.

Stay with me here....back to my head back and knowing I'm His….Right after speaking that verse out loud, something came up in my heart about the whole thing with Miguel. Remember when I shared how I'd justified myself the night before? “The words spoken were the truth”, I thought.

Why is it I think I have to be totally "honest" about my feelings with Miguel? Is it that sometimes that brand of "truth" is just a selfishness that is insensitive and uncaring and wants relief?  Then it hit me. Truth submits to the higher authority. Truth is not the highest ground....love is!   Love takes precedence over truth. "And the greatest of these is LOVE."  Love must lead my mouth and love must guide the "truth" I speak.

ALL TRUTH BOWS TO LOVE, GODS LOVE:

If it's God’s truth it will submit to God’s love. I feel like sometimes I lift truth up to a place that is even higher ground than God’s unconditional love and rule of kindness   I often let truth lead the way. 

TRUTH MUST BE PUT THROUGH THE FILTER OF GOD'S LOVE:

Love is first. Love is always out front, in the lead.  I must remember this in all my relationships and in all my dealings with others. 

GODS LOVE NEVER CALLS ME OUT. HE CALLS ME UP:

Lord you always speak the truth to me in love. God never shames me and calls me out. He loves me unconditionally and calls me up higher and closer to Himself to a place where He can love me even more.  "Lord, let me take on that quality. I pray that kindness and gentleness would always be on my tongue.” This reminds me of the proverbs chapter on the Godly woman.

Proverbs 31:26
"She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue." 

Philippians 4:5 (NIV)
"Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near." 

My honesty should never diminish another...ever.  I don't have to say everything I think or feel, even if it's coming on strong and all up in my grill. My job and my character is to say the honest thing that will uplift another and call my loved ones to a higher place.  Speak the whole truth in love.

Eph 4:15-16 MSG

"God wants us to grow up, to know the whole truth and tell it in love—like Christ in everything. We take our lead from Christ, who is the source of everything we do. He keeps us in step with each other. His very breath and blood flow through us, nourishing us so that we will grow up healthy in God, robust in love." 

I've been on such a quest for truth that I've put it up higher than love at times.  In writing this I realize that God’s Grace is higher than truth too. This is where the unconditional love part comes in to fight for me and love me regardless of my condition.  As Christ's disciples we are taught by the word that we have 3 enemies. These 3 enemies of our souls; the world, the flesh, and the devil need to be addressed where this unconditional love and truth piece is concerned.

The World Is the Enemy:

The world has a system of "do good, get good, do bad, get bad."  The world will tell me I'm just not enough or I'm too much to ever possibly do anything for God!  After all, I don't have this and I haven't done that.  No formal education, money, position, status etc. It's all true.  But I read in God’ s word that He equips me and that He make me competent to do His work and that He gives me the mind of Christ. I also read that He calls the foolish of this world to confound the wise and He calls things that are not as though they were. (Heb 13:21,  2 Cor 3:5, 1 Cor 2:16,1 Cor 1:27, Romans 4:17).The world’s truth about me fades in the light of God’s truth and unconditional love.

The flesh-my humanity, my mind will and emotions are the enemy:

 I know the truth about my past behavior and sinful choices.  I have bad motives sometimes and hurtful thoughts and selfishness and pride and and and.  So here's the deal as I'm seeing it.  God loves me with unconditional love and that trumps all. The truth is I don't deserve it. The truth is that I should have to make up for my sins and pay back what I owe. The truth is that I haven't done anything big and awesome to be deserving of His love, or to be used by Him ..(.like say Mother Theresa or Heidi Baker). But again, here is Gods truth:

Romans 8:31-39: God's Everlasting Love 

" What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? …. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

BAM...TAKE THAT TO THE TRUTH BANK!

The devil- who is a liar and the father of lies is the enemy:

He is also happy to throw truth in my face.  Truth that hasn't gone through the filter of God’s Love and Grace for me is damaging. Satan will lie to me about my worth and value and try to use the "truth" of my actions and sins to diminish me and keep me down. He will use lies and will mix them up with the "truth" of who and what I am in light of my sin and short comings. The enemy will use lies and truths to condemn me and keep me from allowing God to love on me like He wants to. Satan’s goal is to keep me from my purpose in Christ, to convince me that it's too late for me or...I missed it.....I blew it. These are all lies from the pit of hell! As long as there is breath in my body, I can turn my heart toward The Lord and live in His plan for me.  I can be forgiven, redeemed, justified and made new.

My personal journal entry:  Lord, I've prayed with so many women lately that are trying to earn your favor. We throw around the word grace so much and yet don't really stop to think about what it really means. Even your death and resurrection can turn into me trying to earn it by giving up something. For me in this very moment grace is you saying that I'm of much more value to you than my message or the word I bring to bible study. This is grace. You love me more than my ability to perform or earn.  I guess I don't really truly understand this love that you want to give me. The people I love most on this earth still require things from me that I feel I need to give them. You require nothing but my willingness to come to you. To lay down my efforts and ask you to forgive me and fill me with your love.

Truth must bow to love…. And the greatest of these is love! His love, not my piddley ability to love! His love that says "Come to Me if your heavily laden or weighed down with sin."  His love that says He will tenderly takes my hands that are gripped ever so tightly. 

“You can't fix it Keely, but I can. Will you let go? Will you walk with me through this and work with Me and watch How I do it? Will you stop forcing your way because it seems best to you and let me teach you my unforced rhythms of grace for this situation, for this relationship?  If you will just let me have it and trust me you will learn how to take a real rest...like bone deep. A rest for your soul." 

God, I don't get this kind of love yet, but I'm learning. I'm listening. It's hard sometimes because the culture is really loud in my head about my "doing".

Ending Journal Entry: 

What If tonight we all walked out of here with just one slightly different piece of unconditional love that we'd never seen before? What if we all realized God wants to be something or someone to us now that we've never allowed Him to be, or imagined He could be? 

Prayer

Lord you know how much we need your love. You know how we throw truth around like a knife. Forgive us and wash our hearts clean of pride and selfishness. Fill us with your supernatural love. A Love that can love the unlovely or forgive the unforgivable.

Thank you and praise you Abba, for your unconditional love!

Amen