God’s Loves You Just The Way You Are

God loves us. As children we sang “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.” But what does this mean?

This morning I read a devotion Max Lucado wrote about how our day would be different if we were Jesus. How would we respond to thing if our life was exactly the same except for the fact that we were Jesus?

What an interesting concept! How would we respond to traffic?  How would we respond when our children  talk back?  What about when our spouse doesn’t do what we ask them too?

This really got me thinking. How would I respond to the annoyances that occur everyday if I were Jesus? I would like to think I’d react in the same way as Jesus, but would I?

Before we can react like Jesus, we have to accept the fact that he loves us just the way we are; even when we get impatient and grumpy. His love is unconditional and it not performance based.  We sing about how He loves  us, but do we accept his love? Do we believe He loves us, no matter what.

Once we believe with our heart that Jesus loves us, then He can change us, because He
“refuses to leave us the way we are. He wants us to be more like him.”

Here are some scriptures to meditate on if you are having trouble believing that God loves you just the way you are.

Deuteronomy 7:9  Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.

John 3:16-17  For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

1 John 3:1  See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

1 John 4:7  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

1 John 5:2  This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.