Many Christians who've sinned or turned away from church fellowship can feel like God doesn't love them anymore. They think that Jesus won't accept them anymore, that God doesn't have a place for them in His heart any longer, simply because they avoided coming to church or stopped praying.
That's a lie.
Friends, if you feel like that, please read this article. This is a short encouragement for you to know one important truth that you should know and live after: God's love for you can never be taken away.
He's got His eyes on you
Many Christians who've fallen into sin find it hard to get back up. While some are able to recover and return to church and ministry life fairly quickly and without any hardship, some aren't able to do that.
Some Christians who've fallen into sin sadly fall away because they think that God doesn't love them anymore. They've sinned, offended God, and caused God to "hate" them or at least label them as "unacceptable" anymore.
Well, that thought itself is unacceptable before God.
The Bible clearly tells us that God's love knows no bounds. He loved us long before we were born, loved us even before we committed our first sin, loved us while we were still sinners, and continues to love us even after we've received Christ, who died for us while we were still sinners.
Being saved by Christ, however, didn't mean that we'll be automatically and instantly be made sinless or invulnerable to temptation; we will still be tested, we will still make wrong choices until we learn to fear God and obey all He said. We will likely commit sin even after saying "yes" to Jesus Christ and "no" to our sins.
Yes, God saw that.
God saw that we will commit sin long before we committed it. He knew that even after we got saved, we'd still have trouble saying "no" to temptations, especially those things that we really haven't truly repented of and renounced yet.
He saw us commit sins. He saw us watching that sinful TV show, heard us say that curse word, and felt the hurt we inflicted on that person who didn't deserve such treatment. He was there before anything happened, while it happened, and after it happened.
He even saw us try to run away from Him, attempt to hide from Him, and do our best to avoid Him, thinking that we're no longer worthy of His love and attention, His grace and mercy.
Truth is, friends, we were never worthy and we'll never be worthy of anything good He gives. All we deserved for our sin was death, but even that Christ took away from us. And because He took away all that we deserved for our sin, He gave us something that we didn't deserve: His love, His grace, His mercy.
Now who are we to think that because we tried to run away from God, that He wouldn't love us anymore? Who are we to think that because we've sinned, He wouldn't love us anymore - knowing that He loved us while we were still sinners?
Receive His love and grace
Friends, this is God's amazing grace: that He'd always forgive us when we come to Him in repentance for our sin. No matter how big or small the sin is, it can be erased by the blood of Christ; all we need to do is to repent.
Friend, I urge you, stop running away. Stop avoiding Him. No matter how far you've run away, no matter how deep your cave is, just come back. His love for you never changed; all you've got to do is repent of your running away and receive His love again.
I leave you with this passage; I hope it speaks to you:
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:
"For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."
"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39)
