On Toleration & Celebration

I believe God loves me but often struggle with the idea that he LIKES me.

I trust fully in Jesus and am thankful to receive his forgiveness, but I sometimes catch myself slinking around in the corners of the Kingdom hoping no one will notice how much I don’t belong. Deep down, I hold an underlying fear that I could never be anything more than marginally tolerated by God.

And the idea that God delights in me? Rejoices over me? Sings songs over me? LUDICROUS. Almost blasphemous. If he really knew me and how much I don’t deserve his love…

Ah. But he does know.

He knows every sin, every fear, every single shard of my brokenness. And yet…  he swept up those shatters with the gentlest of hands, gathered me up in his arms and carried me into the kingdom like a bride being carried across the threshold on her wedding night.

My doubts about his liking me come from a misunderstanding of his love for me.

I will never understand why a holy God would offer to redeem the likes of me, but he did.

I will never understand how a good God could celebrate the likes of me, but he does.

In fact, it is from the infinite depths of his holiness and goodness that he offers what this world has not and cannot.

Whatever our experiences of love and mercy and joy here on earth, God is different.  He is not like man, that his love would be self-serving. He does not condition his love upon how little we ask of him or how much we can do for him. He does not merely tolerate us; he offers a love so deep and profound that our finite minds cannot fathom it. But we can receive it and we can choose to believe it, even when everything we know of ourselves and of this world tells us otherwise.

In America, we value “tolerance” nearly above all else. When we tolerate others, especially if their worldviews, lifestyles or political opinions differ from us, we count that as compassion. But it is not so. Tolerance is the lowest threshold of acceptance. Jesus taught that we must not merely tolerate those who are different than us, we must love those who are enemies to us. If this seems too much to ask from us, it is. But God does not expect us to love others like this out of our own strength. He offers – through relationship with him – access to his capacity for compassion.

True love requires truth and sacrifice. And he revealed his holiness and goodness when he taught that we all fall short of the glory of God (truth) and yet still chose to die on the cross to pardon our sin (sacrifice). He did this even while we were yet rebels – praying even for the very men who nailed him to the cross.  This is love, friend. This is what Jesus offers us and asks of us. And this is why he celebrates over us when we accept his invitation to redemption.

Do you know the truth of his love for you? Do you know the depth of his compassion or the length to which he would go to draw you back to him? God’s love is truly beyond our comprehension. It is beyond our apprehension, too. 💗

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But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34

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

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