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The Wonder of Love

Imagine God is thinking about you. What do you assume God feels when you enter His mind? For many of us our answer is probably disappointment! If we are honest that is how many of us feel. We look at our lives and we see only sin, failure and weaknesses! Life for many people is a never-ending treadmill of hard work!

When we became followers of Jesus we probably looked forward to a new kind of life. But then we became crushed to discover that old habits die hard. We still struggle with sin in many areas! Our desire to please God often comes up short! Sometimes this may lead us to doubt in our hearts on whether they were really true Christians! 

The good news is that God knows and that is perhaps why he has included them wonderful words in the Bible :  "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are". (1 John 3:1). The most amazing truth about you, if you are a follower of Jesus, is that God is your Father.  When John says we are called children of God he means you bear God’s name. You are like a newly adopted child who receives a new family name from his adopted parents alongside all the blessings that comes with belonging to the family!

But you don’t just carry God’s name and look different from him – this is not like a white couple adopting a black child – the name changes but they are two different races! If you have repented from your sins and placed your trust in Jesus your fundamental nature inside has changed because you have experienced a new birth. You have been born again and carry God’s spiritual DNA forever. The very life of God now flows through your spiritual veins. God is now your Father by name and nature forever!

Just as you will never stop being a member of your biological family – even if they disown you, you will never stop being God’s spiritual child no matter your circumstances! God is now permanently stuck with you! But John tells us, God loves being stuck with you! You are God’s child because of God's unique and foreign love for us.

God’s love is so amazing, John can’t contain himself at the wonder of this love. He exclaims, “what sort of foreign love is this”! Why is John so amazed at God’s love? Because God is nothing like us. God is eternal, independent, unchanging, self-existent, self-sufficient and absolute in dominion. He is the pure most, the most holy, infinitely perfect, infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely just and infinitely glorious!

To be frank, we are totally the opposite. We are evil, unclean and finite. At the core of our being we hate God our loving Creator. What is amazing is that this God has so loved you that he sent His son to come as a human being and die on the cross your sin! 

It’s like this : you were drowning in the river of human sin. Jesus, the One whose hands carry scars of love for you, has come and lifted you from the water of sin into new life with Him. He has given you a new name and welcomed you into His family as his own.

No one has ever loved you as God does because no one has ever bridged such a gap between sin and perfection. You are now God’s beloved child! God now looks upon you as he looks upon Jesus Christ: This is my son, in him I am well pleased! As one hymn writer says:
Once I was clothed in the rags of my sin, Wretched and poor, lost and lonely within, But with wondrous compassion, the King of all kings In pity and love took me under His wing
And then she breaks in her chorus:
Oh yes, oh yes, I’m a child of the King. His royal blood now flows in my veins. And I who was wretched and poor now can sing, Praise God, praise God, I’m a child of the King!
Sadly many of us forget that we are the beloved child of God. We may say sing hymns and say God is our Father but we live functionally as orphans. How do orphans live? The experts tell us that orphans want to take care of themselves; many orphans feel they cannot depend on anyone, so they have to be strong; orphans constantly crave to be taken in and loved but doubt they will ever be accepted.

Many of us treat the Christian life as a point scoring system where we must score A* for God to accept us. Our craving to be accepted by God breaks His heart. Imagine if your child always doubted that you were true parent? It would not only break your heart, probably your marriage as well. We need to come honestly before God and confess that we do not always trust what God says about us. We need plead for His help to open our eyes to “see” how much he the wonder of His love for us in Jesus!

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Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2017
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