TAYA ~ Teens and Young Adults

“I deserve nothing except what I didn’t get.”

It’s one of my favorite pastor’s favorite sayings. It sounds weird at first, maybe even a little self-pitying, until you understand what he means.

You know what I deserve? What we all deserve?

Eternal punishment and damnation.

You know what I have? What all Christians have?

A life to the fullest.

I deserve, for my sins, an eternity separated from the love of the Father. I deserve an eternity of pain and suffering.

That’s the only thing I don’t have in Christ Jesus.

In God’s great mercy, in His abounding love, He sent His Son for me, to die on a cruel cross and bear God’s holy, just wrath for the sins of all people, past, present, and future.

And in the Son’s amazing compassion, in His awesome grace, He chose to die for me. The sacrificial lamb.

They said, “Let Me love you. Let Me take your sins away. Let Me throw them as far as the east is from the west. Let Me take your failures on Myself, and let Me give you joy instead of pain. Let Me do this whether you love Me back or even if you believe in Me.”

But They didn’t stop there, with this precious, completely undeserved gift of life.

No. They kept going.

“When you’re hurting, let Me know. Cry out to Me for strength and healing, and I’ll give you that too. Whatever you need, if it is good for you and it’s in My plan, I will give it to you. And My plan is always for your benefit, if you love Me.”

And when I’m being a brat, and ungrateful? They love me still.

“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for a friend.” John 15:13

How much more great is the Father’s love, that He would give of Himself for even His enemies!

Because that’s what I was, before I knew Christ. I was His enemy because I was not His child. THere is no middle ground. Either you are for Him, or you are against Him. Either you spend eternity with Him, or without Him.

This makes Him sound cruel, vindictive, even. But He’s not. He could wash His hands of all of us, flawed people that we are. We are less than useless, because we work against Him.

But instead, He chases after us. He loves us so passionately, so radically, so dramatically, that He poured out His life for us, and is waiting to give us a precious gift: the gift of life lived to the full, the gift of the love of the Creator of the universe, the gift of an eternity as a coheir with His Son.

The only question is, will you take it?

Erica

I'm a girl who writes sometimes.