I Am Love - I am loved!

You, my sister, you, my brother are loved!  Entering this New Year may the words, I am loved, resonate within your every thought. Along life’s journey, it seems both our experiences and some people have conspired to steal our ability to accept love. Instead of love being our companion, its absence dries our wells leaving us lost and longing for love’s reemergence.

Adversary is an unfamiliar and unwanted role for True Love;

hence, True Love is a relentless missile and you are its target.

This year accept the invitation to abandon any conversations insisting that you lack worth. In this moment embrace the truth, you are a person with immense value. Perchance, these three words have escaped your hearing, from my heart I say, I love you!  More importantly, with assurance that Jesus loves you, you can confidently affirm,   I am loved. Repeat with me, I am loved!

The coldest winter hibernates within the hollowness of the human condition.  

Yet, the love of the Savior slivers through the cracks and shortens our chills; unraveling the frigid blankets of our sin, addiction, anger, bitterness, confusion, depression and feelings of rejection. . .warming us with rays of His Light. Covered in forgiveness, filled with hope we can discard our wintry garments with anticipation of being clothed in the freeing power found in His spring of love.

We can refuse the love of Jesus, but we can’t deny the summer intensity with which God pursues us! Who alone loves us, accepts us, forgives and welcomes us after and during our every fall? Ultimate love, the love of and from Christ, is undeterred by our sins, our experiences, our defeats or our victories.   True Love stems only from the One inhabiting heaven and earth. . .the One with power over body and soul. Love triumphant consistently stoops to distant and destitute places lifting the lost to discover –       

I Am Love enabling each of us to say I am loved.

In the opening of the Parables of the Lost, we witness Love in action and have a glimpse of the willingness and desire of Jesus to make known His love for us.  In Luke 15:1 – 2, the relentless missile overlooks the complicity of our sin and the critics of our sin meeting us in our storms; feasting and fellowshipping with us, communicating I Am Love:

“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus.

But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered,

“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.””

Release yourself from the weariness accompanying any absence of love, knowing that Jesus welcomes you hoping to fill you with His love.  True Love is the missile, I Am is the name and your heart is the bulls-eye! Let today begin the season that you believe I am loved. Repeat with me, I am loved!