The more I live, and the more chances I am given to get this wrong in every conceivable way, the more I have come to realize that the heart of the Christian life is a jaw-dropping awe for the love of Jesus.
The difficulty in talking about this love is that it can hardly be explained with our words, especially those written and necessarily devoid of emotion and inflection as these are. But even just saying that doesn't quite convey what I mean... I shall dive in regardless!
The Lord works in mysterious ways, and most recently he decided to speak to me through a movie. The film in question was "Ragamuffin," a film about the life of Rich Mullins. I highly recommend this movie for many reasons, including it's relevance to the use of music as a tool for ministry, the ideas that will be discussed in this post, the fact that not knowing about Rich Mullins' life is a shame, and more.
I had God speak very palpably to me for the first time so clearly in quite a while during and after this movie. When I thought on the things I'm writing here, I was kept awake by a joy-breeding desire to worship, to sing and write music and write this post and just enjoy the truth of it all. I pray that, through this admittedly poor yet far-reaching medium, God will share it with you as well.
I'll begin this post with a long quote from Brennan Manning that is featured in the movie (in fact, it may not really be a quote, perhaps more of a paraphrase or compilation. Strictly speaking, I'm quoting the movie) because I'm not to do much justice without it:
"In the 33 years since I was first ambushed by Jesus in a small chapel in western Pennsylvania, and the literally thousands of hours of prayer and meditation, silence and solitude in those years, I am now utterly convinced that on Judgment Day the Lord Jesus will ask one question and only one question:
'Did you believe that I loved you? That I desired you? That I waited for you day after day? That I longed to hear the sound of your voice?'
The real believers will respond and say, 'I believed in your love, and I tried to shape my life as a response to it.'
But many of us who are so faithful in our ministry, our practice, church going, are going to answer, 'Well, frankly, no sir. I never really believed it.'
And there's the difference between the real believers and the nominal Christians that abound in our churches across the land. No one can measure like a believer the depth and intensity of God's love. But then again, no one can measure like a believer the effectiveness of our gloom, our pessimism, our low self-esteem, our self-hatred and despair that block God's way to us.
Do you see now why it's so important to take hold of this basic truth of our faith? Because you're only going to be as big as your own concept of God. We make God in our own image and he winds up being as fussy and rude and narrow-minded and judgmental and legalistic and unloving and unforgiving as we are.
I've been in churches in Bangor, Maine, Miami, Seattle, San Diego, and Saint Louis, and honestly the God of so many Christians I meet is too small for me. Because he is not the God of the Word. He is not the God who is revealed in and by Jesus Christ, who at this moment comes to your seat and says,
'I have a word for you.
I know your whole life story. I know every skeleton in your closet. I know every moment of sin and shame and dishonesty and degraded love that's darkened your past.
Right now, I know your shallow faith, your feeble prayer life, your inconsistent discipleship, and my word to you is this:
I dare you to trust that I love you. Just as you are, not as you should be.'
Because none of us are as we should be."
-Brennan Manning
This quote stuck out to me incredibly, and I feel like it will be sticking with me for my entire life. I wrote it in various places, posted pieces on the farthest-reaching social media platforms I had, and memorized it almost instantly (isn't it funny how that happens sometimes?).
I don't think there's a person alive who doesn't need this spoken into their life; I sure did, as did Rich Mullins. What Manning says here is profoundly true. It is so easy to lose sight of how much God loves us. I have spent more of my life in such a state than I have spent really seeing God's love for what it is.
But taking a step back, to not be constantly awestruck by the fact that God loves me is just ridiculous! I have done absolutely nothing to deserve His favor, in fact nearly everything I have ever done has involved throwing his mercy back into His face. Even what I do in the name of righteousness is more often motivated by misguided piety or disguised pride than by true love.
The heart of the Christian gospel is the fact that we don't have to change to come to God. God came to us, in all of our garbage, and is willing to bear with us through all of it. This is amazing. It's much easier to type or read than it is to really believe. Seriously, how often have you said "Jesus loves me" and REALLY meant it? Recently, I've been able to mean it more and more.
Grasping (or beginning to grasp, as its full magnitude is unfathomable) the the reality of Jesus' love for me, even as watching a movie, filled me with the sort of joy that only such a reality. The sort of joy that we as humans were created to run on, that which flows from God's very presence, that which we will experience forever in eternity, and that which we are unbelievably blessed to experienced as sweet tastes of Heaven here on earth.
This sort of joy is what worship, in its natural state, flows from. Worship is a response. We must not get to thinking that worshiping God is what we do first, before we talk about God's love for us. Or something that somehow impresses Him and elicits such love. No! When the reality of Jesus' love is seen clearly, joyful exultation in worship is the only possible response!
There's probably much more I could say here, but I am going to stop because I believe I have said what, hopefully, some or all of you will be blessed by hearing.
Dare to believe that He loves you. Right now. With all of your skeletons, all your doubts, insecurities, cynicism, past, present, and future. His love is reckless, relentless, and downright stupid crazy.
Know that when you sing this song, you sing the most theologically profound statement you will ever hear:
Jesus loves me, this I know
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.
