“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:8
Have you believed the lie that God only has time for “good” people? Have you mistakenly assumed you have to get your proverbial act together and clean yourself up before He will consider allowing you into His presence?
If you are a “church lady” you most likely know that’s not true, but do you behave like it is? Do you avoid God when you know you are a mess?
If you’re not a church lady, then please know God loves you and truly desires to have a relationship with you. You need not avoid Him because you feel unworthy. In fact, that’s the point. We are all unworthy. We are all unable. The very reason we need Jesus – our more-than-enough—is because we can never be enough on our own.
What keeps you from Him?
Shame, embarrassment, anger, resentment, bitterness—so many swirling emotions when life is difficult, painful, or right-down hard. And that’s when we need Him most.
The whole point of the gospel – the good news – is that Jesus died for us mess and all. If we could clean ourselves up, we wouldn’t need a Savior. The gospel is not just for that day – our ticket into heaven when we step out of this finite world and into eternity. The gospel is for this day. The gospel transforms our day-to-day lives on this planet. The gospel gives us an anchor to hold to in the storms of life. It gives us a purpose when there seems to be none.
You may know about God, but are you interested in getting to really know God? That is the reason we read and study the Bible.
Maybe you’ve never opened a Bible. Maybe you know you should, but life is full. Maybe you never let a day pass without reading God’s love letter to you. Whatever point you find yourself on the timeline of life, please consider joining me this year on a journey through the Old Testament book of I Samuel.
This 19-week study begins with the birth of Samuel – a man of God who was a prophet, judge, and priest for God’s people. It then goes on to chronicle the end of the era of the judges for God’s people and the subsequent launch of their royal history with the anointing of first Saul and then David as kings of Israel.
I hope you will plan to study along with us this year. I’ve launched a new YouTube channel to make it easy to share the videos of our teaching. Each weekly blog will include a link to that week’s teaching lecture. Here’s the Welcome video:
And here’s the link to my Introductory teaching to kick off this study. You might enjoy the MESS story about my sweet granddaughter!
(And…it would certainly be a blessing if you would subscribe to the channel and then click the like button, and also comment on the videos.)
