My word for the year is HOPE, and I have been posting Scripture verses that speak of that hope. This week, I have been pondering how to live with hope. One message reverberates in my heart, mind and spirit — LIVE LOVED!
I heard this message in church on Sunday; it was repeated over and over again in a song on the way to Bible study yesterday: “Oh, He loves us. Oh, how He loves us……”; in my Centering Prayer group, I kept hearing about God’s steadfast love then saw a picture of what it means to live in that love.
LIVE LOVED! Where to start? Reagan’s sermon on Sunday reminded me of a Cross Train devotion I taught many years ago from Mark 1:9-11: “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.'”
Thanks to the death of Jesus on our behalf, we are cleansed from all unrighteousness. When God looks at us, He sees Jesus — all the righteousness of Jesus. We are declared clean, healed, forgiven, accepted, delighted in and perfectly loved.
This is an amazing message! Despite the amazing gift God offers me through Jesus, I still often choose to live unloved. I wonder what it would be like if we started each day allowing God’s words to Jesus/to us to flow over us and through us: “You are my beloved daughter/son; with you I am well pleased!”
God’s love is not earned; it is accepted. Just like God’s grace. If I want to live with HOPE, I realize I have to choose each day to live loved. The enemy taunts me. Shame wants to control me. Guilt sometimes tries to hold me back from fully living life. Yet, Love, GRACE, HOPE call out to me through God’s truth.
Today, I choose to LIVE LOVED; I choose grace; I choose HOPE because I am God’s beloved daughter and He is well pleased with me. That is a miracle that I choose to believe!