An Uncomplicated Love // God Loves Unconditionally نموونە

The Greatest Change of Heart

So, you did it again? You did that thing you hate. You figure you must be stuck—that there is no change in you, and that I must be far away. You wonder how faith works. For, in your heart, you’ve decided to follow Me, but your weak flesh rebels. You want to do the right thing, the loving thing. Yet you’re finding that doing the “right thing” isn’t your first instinct. In a moment of trial, you resort to doing the thing you did before you surrendered your heart to Me. So, now you’re wondering if this surrender thing even works. You wonder if I work. You wonder if believing in Me, loving Me, works on you.

What this struggle comes down to is a focus on yourself rather than on Me. You are conditioned by the world to pursue change through effort. And yes, a change of the heart takes effort. But it takes more than that too―it takes love. It takes loving Me more than anything else—which is more powerful than your good or bad behavior. I love you despite what you see as failure: when you hurt others, when you intend to do a good thing but then you change your mind and don’t. You see, you can’t control Me—or the amount that I love you. And that is why love is powerful. This love I’ve just described is a different definition of love you are made to adopt and to live.

It is frustrating, I understand, when you do, once again, the thing you hate to do. You don’t like it when, in the moment, despite all of your plans to do good, you resort to behavior that you don’t associate with Me: unkindness, impatience, selfishness, hurtful words, deceit, greed. And then, after you’ve done it, and your heart is hurting and remorseful, you become self-condemning. Rage swells in you at your failure. You assume, due to your sin, you must be far away from Me, or that I don’t want to be near you and have pulled myself away. Do you see that when you have this attitude of self-condemnation, this hatred toward yourself when you sin, that you are rejecting what is most true about you? That despite everything you’ve done, you are loved?

This is where the battle begins. This is when you have to choose to fight—fight to see Me, fight to let your soul rise up and believe—have faith—that I am for you, that I love you, that I am with you, despite what you have done. For when you do this, when you choose to believe that my love for you is not dependent on your action, that sin is defeated, that self-condemnation is defeated by my love―the lies of the enemy have no place to land. You have put up the shield of faith and you can keep moving, eager to rise again, try again, and walk in love. 

You are able to turn your back on sin because my power is in you. You are able to be free of it, completely, step by step, as you fall more deeply in love with Me. It is not that you won’t struggle, but you will be less tempted to do evil. And my love in you will embolden you to recognize, more quickly, when the temptation comes. It is mindfulness about my presence in you that you need to practice most now. Fill your mind with what is good, with thoughts of my love for you, and temptation to sin will not have a foothold in your soul.

When you sin, and you regret that you have sinned. Yes, the first step is confession—confession to Me. For this is so good for you. I softens your heart. It opens you up to Me and my love for you. And then repentance—turning your back on sin again—deciding, in your heart, to not commit that sin anymore—is good for you too. But after confession, and after repentance, you still might be tempted to sin again. And this is when you rise up. This is when you fight. This is when you choose to believe I am still for you, I still love you, I have entrusted you as an heir to my kingdom, I still call you the beloved. And then self-condemnation cannot come in, and you can keep going—deeper and deeper into my love for you. And you are further protected here, as you abide in what is true.

Exercise:

Holy Spirit gives us three things to do when we find ourselves having fallen into sin . . . again. He said we must confess. And we must repent. And then he said something a bit unexpected. He said we must accept His love.

We’re all familiar with the first two steps. Confession—being honest and owning our mistakes. And repentance—turning from our sinful ways and being willing to do what it takes to try to avoid doing these things again. These first two steps are front and center to the decisions we make, and what happens in our hearts, when we decide to follow Jesus. We’ll continue having to confess and repent for our whole lives, but it was through confessing and repenting and believing in Jesus that we began following Him. So, as hard as they may be, we’re all familiar with them. To even be followers of Jesus, we’ve necessarily and genuinely confessed and repented—to some extent.

But it’s not so with the third step—accepting the love of God, even after we’ve blown it, again. There are lots followers of Jesus out there—mature followers—who have very little understanding of the nature and the depth and the breadth of God’s love. Because the very idea of His love is radical and counterintuitive. And so, there are lots followers of Jesus who struggle mightily with accepting it and allowing Him to love them.

When we’ve blown it, and we’re always blowing it, our human brains demand justice—upon us. Our brains demand penance. They demand consequences. And there very well may be physical-world consequences for our sinful behavior. But our human brains assume that among those consequences must be a diminishment in God’s love. There just has to be, we assume. Because for Him to accept us, for Him to love us, for Him to want to be with us, when we’ve just done something we’re ashamed of—it makes no sense.

So, while we may confess, and we may even repent, we rarely, if ever, feel like running right into the arms of our Father in the moments immediately after, or even during, our sinful actions. We rarely, if ever, welcome the presence of Jesus in those moments. We rarely, if ever, ask for the power of Holy Spirit to flow into us and into the immediate situation.

What we usually do is withdraw for a time. We tend to want to avoid God until we feel better about ourselves—until some time has gone by, or until we’ve done some things, some [quote] good things, in order to offset our sinful behavior. The effect of this approach, though—this approach that is intuitive and comes so naturally—is that we cut ourselves off from God and from His grace right when we need them most. We avoid what we need most, right when we need it most.

Because here’s the no-so-secret secret—it’s God’s grace: It’s His power that changes us, that kills sin, not what we do under our own power. So, if we’re cutting ourselves off from grace when we need it most, no wonder we’re still struggling with the same old sins!

So what can we do, if accepting His love is difficult?

Well, instead of trying to will ourselves to to accept His love, instead of trying to bend our minds toward seeing ourselves as lovable still, we can flip things. And we can do something instead that’s simple and practical.

You see, whenever we encounter God, because of His nature, there’s always an exchange of some sort—sin for righteousness; brokenness for healing; ashes for beauty; joy for sadness; fear and anxiety for peace. And then there’s the best kind of exchange: love for love for love for love. So, when we do something practical that demonstrates our love for Him, when we praise and worship Him, for example, we open ourselves up to an exchange. We open ourselves up to the third step. We put ourselves into a posture where we can receive God’s love for us.

There’s a song from Michael W. Smith called “Surrounded.” The lyrics are just two phrases repeated over and over:

The first one is: This is how I fight my battles /

And the second one is: It may look like I'm surrounded but I'm surrounded by You /

But at the very beginning of the song, Smith talks specifically about an exchange. Inspired by Isaiah  chapter 61, he says that when we experience a spirit of heaviness—like the heaviness we feel when we can’t accept God’s love for us—we can put on  “the garment of praise.”

This is how I fight my battles /

It may look like I'm surrounded but I'm surrounded by You /

What Jenn and I love about this song is that it offers a way to do what’s been so hard for us to do. It shows us how to run to God, practically—when all we want to do is run away. It reminds us how huge it is to seek God’s presence in the moments after we’ve blown it. It reminds us that one of the best ways to fight our battles against sin is to do something that, while counterintuitive, is doable. It reminds us how powerful it is to praise Him, when we just want to sulk and separate and condemn ourselves.

This is how I fight my battles /

It may look like I'm surrounded but I'm surrounded by You /

Let’s read Holy Spirit’s words to us one more time: “After confession, and after repentance, you still might be tempted to sin again. And this is when you rise up. This is when you fight. This is when you choose to believe I am still for you, I still love you, I have entrusted you as an heir to my kingdom, I still call you the beloved. And then self-condemnation cannot come in, and you can keep going—deeper and deeper into my love for you. And you are further protected here, as you abide in what is true.”

I invite you to confess to Jesus something that’s weighing on your heart, something you wish you’d never done—tell Him what it is. And repent it—turn your back on the sin; tell Him you’ve changed your mind about it; and resolve to forsake whatever you’ve done, with His help, in the future.

And now . . . praise Him.

Praise Jesus for who He is. Praise Him for his strength and his love. Praise Him for his pursuit of you—even when you are at your worst, even when you are in the darkest of places. Praise Him for how He will never give up on you—no matter what. Praise Him for his good plans for you. Praise Him because you know He has so much good for you ahead—more restoration and relationship; more joy and peace.

And now keep praising Him . . . on your own.