Psalm 121:   I lift up my eyes to the hills.  From where does my help come?   My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.  He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber.    Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.     The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.    The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon at night.   the Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life.   The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.   

No matter what happens in our lives, no matter our failings, the Lord will never leave us.   He will never forsake us or turn His back on us.    He will never even slumber or sleep as He keeps us in His sight.   Eternally the God of the universe is watching over us and every move that we make.   If we mess up, He promises to work all things for good for those of us who are called according to His purpose.    If we mess up and our heart was right, then His compassion will come in like a flood.  He can take all of our mess ups and convert them into blessings.   He is amazing and beyond any other, so far beyond.   He loves us.

Be encouraged.   There’s nothing we can do to cause God to love us any more than He does.  And there’s nothing we can do to cause God to love us any less.   Nothing.    Nada.  Zilch.    It is finished.

This vast and deep concept simplifies at the birth of your own child.   Once you have a child, you know that there is nothing that could cause you to not love that child- ever, for the rest of your life.    (Assuming a reasonable level of sanity here.)   It suddenly makes more sense.

Here are a few additional thoughts relating to this all encompassing truth-  Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so.

To love means also to discipline.   Any parent worth their salt knows that to allow their child to do whatever that child wants to do could easily lead to the child’s death.    It could be physical death, it could be death of character, it could be spiritual death,  or any other form in between.   How could we, loving our child, ever not restrict the 2 year old from jumping in the sparkling deep end of a pool?  How could we say to our 13 year old it’s fine to drive the car even though they don’t have a license? This isn’t love.  And we are made in His imagine.   He, too, disciplines those He loves- in order to save them from the danger of their own destruction.   And, we can be fully forgiven but still have the consequences of our sin on our plates, perhaps a lifetime. (Consider the unwed mother who still have a child to raise.)

God is not a marshmallow in the sky saying we can do whatever we’d like and He will turn His eyes the other way and pretend it’s not happening. That is not God loving us.   That is God despising us.   And that would be God despising Himself in Jesus.  If He were a permissive God,  then the cross is pointless and the painful death Jesus suffered unnecessary.   Now that would be a horrible Father- the one who let His son suffer and die needlessly.

Let’s obey Him- because we love Him and we trust that when He says no, He does so out of love.  Let’s not pretend that the rules don’t apply to us or that we will get away with whatever we are doing.  We may appear to be getting away with it but we cannot refute His laws.  And when our sin is visited upon our children and we see the door we opened for them to fall, it will hurt much greater than had we ourselves suffered the consequences.   There’s just no way to avoid His decrees.   And this is love.   And when the one you love breaks the rules and causes themselves or others pain, your heart breaks as well.   Let us not break the heart of our Creator.

Love.   Love changed, changes, and will change the world.    Love died for us so that we can be with Him in eternity.   From this time forth and forevermore.

Takeaway:    The Lord loves us more than we can ever comprehend.   He is forever watching over us.  He will never leave us.   The love of God is the most powerful force in the universe.  He will help us, He will keep us.   We are the object of His affection.  And He says that if we love Him, we will obey Him.   Our obedience is a reflection of our love for Him.  O come let us adore Him.  

Prayer:   Lord, thank you so much for loving me like no other will ever love me.   Thank you for your grace and for your mercy.   Please gently correct me if i am not doing what you want me to do.  Give me healthy conviction, and not condemnation, to correct anything in me from falling away from You, from Your word.  My desire is to obey you because I love you.   Let love continue to motivate me to become more like you, to know you more.