You are...

When you wake up in the morning and everything is gone, you are loved. When you fall asleep at night and smile at the good day that passed, you are loved. When normality drills a hole into your skull because you are bored, you are loved. You are loved. The cross stands permanently accepting you as you are. If you are like me, if you have heard the story all of your life, it can feel old. Yes, I know, Christ died for me but what about NOW?

Will you step back with me a moment, into a vortex of time, or into a vortex that takes you out of this current reality?

Imagine that you can see God in creation. Do you see, there: Man was made in God’s image with the ability to feel, reason, a sense of morality. There are Adam’s arms, his legs, his full body. Good. No, very good. Then woman appeared, so that man might not be alone. Good.

You are loved, personally, for you. If God is going to hold you personally accountable for your actions does it not make sense that He will also love you and want you personally? Why else would He care?

He made you. He made you finite, with limitations and skin and energy levels. He made you with a unique bent in personality; be that towards art, towards children, towards laughter, or quiet. He made you with the ways that you react and respond to life.

And then they were distorted.

When Adam and Eve sinned, distortions came in and messed up your completeness; your sense of wholeness. You were covered in guilt (be it when you first sinned, or by inheritance, you were covered in guilt and there wasn’t anything you could do about it). But still, you were loved. God did not abandon humans but over and over again as a race He has pursued us, from accepting Abel’s sacrifice to pursuing the Israelites, to the god-man on a cross.

And when the grave became empty, then you became whole and when earth was left without it’s human likeness of God, His spirit  came inside. If you have accepted Christ, you are a new creation. Your name is redeemed, holy, righteous. While you are still sinner, you are only sinner because you sin. And yes, you do still sin. Don’t  just stop when you see it and say “I’ll do better” because sometimes even morality can simply be a disguise of our disgrace. You are loved. You are loved, even when you hit God’s gag-reflex in sin.

You are loved as you are. Distorted image and redeemed image. You were created, distorted, and are accepted. And there is a side of you, an ideal picture of what could have been, and what will be. The perfect image of God. Pieces of it still sneak out on occasion, and in the process of sanctification those occasions grow in frequency. You are loved, not “when,” not “if,” but “now.” Why? Because God made you like He wanted, and He’s not about to desert you. You may be overly talkative, but God gave you words. You may be quiet and withdrawn, but God gave you a sense of hesitancy and caution. You may find yourself in the same sin, the same addiction over and over again. Change may not feel possible. You are accepted. Period. After the period, after that truth, change may be possible but sometimes I think we miss the point. Growth does not give value. Even seeking growth won’t. You are loved.