Love’s Invitation May Shock You

“I love you because you are my daughter, but I don’t like you as a person.” These words spoken over me as a teen defined my view of how others loved me for many years. In fact, they defined how I viewed God’s love for me. That is until Love’s invitation shattered my preconception.

Like no other, God’s invitation of Love truly has no strings attached, no prerequisite hoops for jumping through, or no conditions to which we must comply before receiving it.

Accustomed to earning love, my relationship with God remained stiff and strained as I constantly strove for His love, which was more akin to the approval I never seemed to garnish elsewhere.

Like the words spoken over me by my mother, I naturally concluded God loved me out of obligation to loving the whole world (John 3:16) but had only basic tolerance for me as a person.

Though filled with zeal as a newly saved teen, I soon slipped into a rhythm of walking on eggshells in God’s Presence, sure I was one of His big disappointments.

This Lent, Love’s invitation through following Jesus to the Cross spoke transforming words over the deeply entrenched limiting beliefs I held for so long.

Stuck within the tension of God’s perfect love and His perfect justice, which so mimicked my experience growing up, I missed the true import of His Love for me.

Unable to reconcile the fact of God’s perfect justice demands as sinners we be cast from His Holy Presence, while His perfect Love simultaneously insists we be welcomed into His forgiving arms, I stood outside grace.

For the Cross unites the two mutually exclusive ideals of God’s Love and justice within the embodiment of grace in the person of Jesus Christ.

Jesus, intimately acquainted with my sins, yet infinitely willing to die in my place, is the ultimate illustration of Love’s invitation.

Where the world stands by eager for my moments of weakness, so it can shout, “unworthy! unwanted!” God rather takes pleasure in, while rejoicing and dancing out of sheer delight at the thought of me.

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”

Zephaniah 3:17-ESV

In Isaiah 62:3-5, God is described as rejoicing over His people as a bridegroom over His bride, and verse 4 says “the LORD delights in you.”

These two passages express anything but a ho-hum love which barely tolerates its object. No, God’s Love resounds extravagant, filled with exuberance!

Even more than having an exquisite Love for you, God delights in being with you.

In ancient culture as well in many foreign cultures, if the host kept refilling the guest’s cup it was an indication the host wished the guest to remain longer. I experienced this firsthand on the mission field in Albania.

Learning much about following Jesus from Psalm 23, we also see the psalmist’s incredible illustration of the truth of God’s desire and delight in spending time with us, in verse 5, as he says “my cup overflows.”

Love’s invitation in Jesus bids us enter by grace into a relationship characterized by perfect Love, but also by sheer delight in spending time with us, quirks and all. Where others may find us tiresome or annoying, God finds only Joy.

Imagine, God not only loved you enough to die in your place, ensuring you would be with Him for eternity, but He thoroughly enjoys the thought of being with you both now and forever.

If you deeply believed God not only loved but, enjoyed you, how would that change your relationship with Him?

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