Me Loves Jesus Because Jesus Loves Me

John 3:16
...For God SO loved the world......

I John 4:8
......For God IS love......

I Corinthians 13:13
.....But the greatest of these IS love.....

John 16:27
...For the Father Himself loves YOU....

You know...if you can ever wrap your mind around this great truth, it will change you forever.
If you can ever let it seep down into your spirit, you will never be the same.
The incredible truth that the God of the Universe....
God Almighty.....
The God of the Bible....
Loves you, and He loves me.
With all our scabs and warts....
With all our wrong choices and bad decisions....
With all our emotional baggage and dark thoughts...
He still loves us and wants to grow us up and put His Spirit inside of each of us....
That is a bit overwhelming and almost more than a body can take in.

And for every one of those "God loves you" statements, I'm sure that most of us could shoot back with "Yeah, but"....and have a clarifying statement to tie to the end of it.
"Yeah but I've done some terrible things".
God still loves you.
"Yeah but I've cursed God for something terrible that happened in my life".
God still loves you.
Every terrible thing we've ever done....
Every terrible thing we've ever said....
Every terrible thought we've ever had float through our minds....
Can be brought under the cleansing tide of God's forgiveness, if we will simply turn loose of it through confession and let Him have it. 
Sounds to easy doesn't it?
Well, remember who it is God is working with (you and me). It has to be easy for us to understand it. We just have a tendency to complicate everything, do we not?

Armed with such an incredible assurance and understanding, I turn this thought into action.
I worship!
I don't just sing the words that are on the screen during a VRC service. Those very words become a lifeline to my heavenly Father as I pour out the emotion and joy that comes from knowing He loves me.
When I sing the Waterdeep song "You Have Redeemed My Soul"....it becomes an anthem of redemption because I remember what it was like to live in the pit of emptiness. I remember the hopelessness that accompanied such time, and it just rises up within me to let God know how much I love Him. I worship.

I sing the words to Delirious' "I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever"...and I mean it. I could! 
I am free once and for all time. Nothing that I could accomplish on my on, or through my own power and strength. I am merely a receiver of God's love, mercy and grace.

As most churches sometimes have a benediction song that is played at the end of every service, we do the same at Vineyard Recovery Church.
If you listened to the video clip at the beginning of this post, you heard ours.
Ed Raetzloff's "Jesus Loves You".
I want folks to leave our meeting with the knowledge and understanding of what this statement means. To let it grab hold of them so that in the coming week they might have some assurance that they are not some sort of cosmic glob moving over the face of this planet, ;whose very life maters to no one. 

So with that in mind....
Keep on truckin' down that highway....
Put some miles on your shoes....
And just remember one little thing....
Jesus loves you!

God on you...
mb