For Heaven's Sake!

For heaven's sake! Why is it so difficult to grasp the fact that God loves us? I have tried for years to make people aware of the reality of this fact, and yet I am continually met with a response that sounds something like this, "Oh, I believe God loves me, but just in case..." At that moment of confession, I am inundated with reasons why the "believer" doesn't really believe at all due to offenses, sins, infractions, misdeads, slips, etc. that are perceived to have caused them to cross over the line of ever being fully accepted. That lack of certainty in the back of the mind that allows one to embrace the fact that, in spite of God being loving, merciful, gracious, etc. this particular misstep was just the one necessary to bring God's capacity to willingly forgive to the point of no return. Yet we read in Hebrews 11 about the great people of faith whose stories are filled with every kind of sin imaginable, but we somehow still choose to envision ourselves as having fallen further down a road of no return than "those people". The scriptures are supposed to be showcasing the life stories and struggles of men and women we can fully identify with, so that when it comes to trusting God's ability to love us as much, we will grasp that loving us should be no different that loving any of them. These are stories of people named Abraham, Samson, David and Solomon, who lied, cheated, murdered, lusted, committed adultery, dishonored their parents, stole, lived in total debauchery and had no seeming character to speak of. Yet, the book of Hebrews still speaks of them from God's perspective as having faith, regardless of their sins and moral failures with full acceptance and right-standing before him.
God spoke to Old Testament prophets of a future time when he would "make a new covenant with his people, not like the one made with their forefathers (Moses)" but a covenant with a strategic PROMISE being that "I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." This covenant being spoken of by Old Testament prophets was also recalled by the writer of the book of Hebrews in the NT as being the foundation of the Christian faith. It is the covenant promise we have been given to trust in, cling to, rely on and accept as giving us unbroken eternal friendship with a just and holy God, who we have been estranged from due to being dead in our sins and tresspasses. This covenant makes provision for us being in a continued state of potential future sins and doesn't offer the believer condemnation for the fact that they fail in any way, shape or form. We bring our sins, misdeads, failures, iniquity, willful rebellion (whatever you want to call it) to the feet of Jesus in simple confession and admittance of the fact, and we are cleansed. Just that easy. This is not to say that we are without consequence for our choices and decisions. We may take a course of action that might send us to prison, but the earthly consequence can have no eternal bearing of condemnation upon the individual where God is concerned. The slate can and is wiped clean.
One of the things I find interesting is that the Old Testament Law had a provision for sins that we might be unaware we committed. Still, our ignorance of such conditions being made on our behalf is often crippling to the relationships of people who cannot trust in the ongoing grace and mercy of God being applied to their lives. But it is available. It doesn't cease. Our fearful minds seem to readily embrace that God would be more understanding and willing to love us if we would stop doing some particular behavior. Or if we would promise to stop some behavior, or to have never done it to begin with.
To believe that our ongoing upright behavior is required to maintain God's friendship and love toward us is to believe that his gifts are not a gift at all, but a response to our works. If this is the case, we have just earned the very benefits and options of this covenant that were promised to come FREELY without our contribution.
For heaven's sake... let God love you as he intended to. The way he provided for you to receive his abundantly rich blessings is not through your self-efforts and moral uprightness. It is sincerely and truly a gift of his grace through faith.
Let this give you peace and rest. May you be freed from the anxiety and fear that accompanies the belief that God is going to do something bad to you for the things you have done in your life. "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him might be saved." Jn 3:17
For heaven's sake... that means YOU!
Drink deeply