“But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” —Romans 5:8
In the most unlikely place, in the most unlikely way, love washed over me as I walked through the grocery’s parking lot, sticky toddler fingers in hand. Deep love for my little boy hit as I realized my three year old has been anything but lovable many days these past months. They have been long months. Painful months. Yet love that little boy I do—so so deeply.
As we drove home, lyrics to a popular worship song sounded out of tune with reality—out of sync with God’s rich truth. “God sees the best in me.” The idea behind this lyric is that God loves me and I have nothing to prove. While this is true, scripture points to deeper truth. God sees the WORST in me—and He loves me anyway. God loves with a steadfast, che.sed kind of love that is faithful. God’s love stands at the ready to forgive even in the face of my own unfaithfulness. Sin’s face is ugly, bent and at odds with God.
What does this ugly sin look like?
It looks more like a toddler in the throes of a tantrum, fighting against every effort meant to comfort and help. It is the picture of a DIY project gone horribly wrong. Isaiah 57 paints a portrait of wickedness, of sin—and it’s not pretty. We are liars, deceivers, murders of our own flesh and blood. We are idol makers bent on the worship of worthless things. We would rather turn to all that is unable to save than to the one who created us and has the real power to save. We love ourselves and we love our own ways more than we love God. We easily desert God (Isa.57:8) and yet are willing to go great lengths in our own sin, even when it wearies us (Isa. 57:10). How backwards and foolish is this kind of living? We struggle to see truth and struggle to trust the one who is truth and so we don’t live according to it.
God sees the ugly, yet God loves us deeply. God says, “I have seen his ways, but I will heal him…” (Isa. 57:18a). God loves us in our broken state, pulls us out of the pit of our own making, and redeems us in His limitless grace and mercy. As we near Easter, I’m reminded that this beautiful gift of grace came at great cost to God. Only through Christ’s shed blood on the cross can we know lasting peace. Only through Christ can we have peace with God. Sin has a price that demands payment. Sin separates us from God—we can not save ourselves. So God, through His son, paid the ultimate price and through repentance, we freely inherit unshakable peace.
“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isa. 57:15)
Did you catch that last part? The one who inhabits eternity—whose very name is Holy, not only dwells high but bends low to dwell with those who repent, turn and trust. God has power to save and oh how He saves! God restores. He showers us with forever peace.
This is love. Not that we love, are good, or do good—because we don’t and we are not. God IS love—sacrificial, beautiful, love—love I don’t deserve and you don’t deserve but love that we are given anyhow.
God sees the worst in us and loves us anyway.
While we go great lengths to live in sin, praise God we have a father willing to go such great lengths to break our ugly chains of sin and revive our weary souls!
