Convinced

I'm going to repeat something today because I'm assuming you, like me, need to be reminded of this fact regularly.

God wants you.

You read the words and want to believe them, but those dark thoughts encircle you:

You think you are unclean and unworthy of love, forgiveness, and redemption.

Nope

You think that if God knew what was really going on with you, behind closed doors, in the dark, you would be rejected and abandoned.

Wrong

You think you are a disappointment, a black sheep who just can't get it together.

False

God wants you, and nothing will stop Him from turning over every rock until He finds you.

You don't have to keep playing hide and seek.

You think you're clever, but there are no hiding places where God cannot find you.

So let's sit and rest and stop running and hiding.

It's exhausting, and my feet are starting to hurt, aren't yours?

It's been going on long enough.

Nothing you have done is a surprise or shock to God. He's been there with you the whole time.

God has been waiting for you to reach out and let Him hold, rescue, protect, and love you.

He's nothing if not patient.

His grace and mercy surround you, and through the loving sacrifice of Jesus, all is forgiven.

Period.

So don't just read the words that God wants you.  

Receive them.

Believe them.

Because they are true.

God wants you. I am convinced of it.

Luke 15: 3-7

Then Jesus told them this parable: "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn't he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Romans 8: 37-38

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Psalm 34:17–19 

The righteous cry, and the LORD hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles. The LORD is n ar to them that are of a broken heart; and saves such as be of a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivers him out of them all.

Psalm 63:1

You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you,

my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.