Perfect Love for Imperfect Me

Is there ever a part of you that feels fake? I have.

On the outside, do you appear to have it all together, but on the inside you really don’t or at least you’re afraid you don’t? Every day there is an expectation that you have to perform a certain way or live up to other people’s standards to keep up with the expectations of spouses, kids, teachers, employers, and friends when all the while inside things are not quite the way that they seem. Maybe we believe that no one knows what we are really like; they don’t get us. They just see the exterior show.

I remember especially feeling this way when I was young. I knew what I was on the inside. Every few weeks, I would hear the sermon preached in church, take a look at my life and think that I needed to give my life to Jesus again. Surely when He looked at me, He felt disappointed in me.

The really cool thing about Jesus it that he knows it all, the stuff others see and the stuff they don’t see. He knows and he still loves every part of us – inside and out. Even when we make bad decisions, things we are ashamed of; he knows and it doesn’t change the way he feels about us. It doesn’t erase his love for you!

Grab your Bible and check out Psalm 139:1 – 18. Psalms is the book of the Bible found almost right smack in the middle. Once you find it, I want you to read these verses out loud so that you can hear what Jesus is saying to you! I know it is kind of long and you’ll feel weird, but go ahead! It’s really important for you to hear this truth as you read it out loud.

“O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in – behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me; your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.” Psalm 139: 1 –18 NIV

Did you read that? Did you read that Jesus loves every part of you? Maybe you’ve heard the saying “love is blind”? Well this love isn’t! He has searched you. He knows you. He knows everything you do, everything you’ve done and everything you are going to do. Does any of it change the way he feels about you? No! Where can you flee from his presence? No where!

Today, no matter what is going on in your life, he knows about it and still loves you. Sure, maybe there are changes that need to be made; big changes in fact. But no matter what those changes are, his love remains the same. Bask in it today, my friend!

Lynn

4 Comments

  1. Anonymous says:

    This was so needed for my life this morning. I needed this reminder of God's love for me and how no matter what I feel about myself he loves me. Thank you for this awesome encouragement today and for this blog. God Bless you.

  2. That fist paragraph really describes me! At work and at home I feel like I always have to be the strongest and always in control, when actually this past year (due to stress), I've really wanted to sit down and cry everyday!! I'm definately putting on an exterior show, but deep down I know that our God is with me every step of the way and I will overcome these stressful times and will be closer to him in the process. Thanks Lynn for all you do to remind and encouage us.

  3. Lynn, so much of this post is echoing what I was sitting and writing yesterday…the very way I was feeling.

    "Nothing you do or fail to do could ever separate you from My love." Sarah Young

    Resting in His love,
    Joy

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