You Don’t Have to be Perfect For God to Love You

We are all works in progress (WIP’s). We do not have to be perfect to receive God’s love.

God’s love is immeasurable and is like no human love that we can ever encounter. For many years I could not grasp that God loved me right where I was. I believed I had to earn God’s love. Being raised in a religion that taught following rules to earn right standing with God distorted the truth of God’s love in my life. Even after I accepted Jesus as my Savior, I joined a church and began “performing” to earn my worthiness with God and the church. I was “working” my way for God to be pleased with me.

I was bound by the lie: God will love me when …

I never just sat at Jesus’ feet and rested, I worked! I believed I had to work hard and serve exhaustively for Jesus to love me. I was missing something deeply in my life. I was doing a lot of “good works” and was in ministry full-time but I was incomplete. I had not fully comprehended that Jesus loved me just as I am. I had difficulty understanding that God could love my weaknesses, failures, sins, and shortcomings. Of course, God does love us too much to keep us in our sins, but I felt shame and unworthiness when I would sin. I tended to turn away from God if I messed-up in an area in my life. I had no idea that I could run to Jesus and share with Him what I had done, and He would not get angry with me and turn from me. I grew-up with conditional love, so it was not easy for me to accept that God loved me unconditionally. I had a misconception that God will be proud of me or love and accept me when I got it all together.

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 86:15

Jesus is so full of compassion and gentleness for our weaknesses and captivity in sin. When we sin, God exposes that sin not to condemn us but to bring healing and forgiveness to us. His desire is not to make us feel shame, but that we are free from the consequences of sin.

We are all works in progress. God works on us individually and with different methods. God may have delivered you from a particular sin but He may working on another area in someone else’s life.

God is not waiting for you to be perfect to come to Him. There is no need to run and hide from Jesus. He is such a loving Father, and He will not make you feel less-than or reject you with whatever you bring to Him. Give it all to Jesus, tell Him whatever your struggles have been. He truly cares deeply for all that you struggle with.

God’s love is more powerful than any drug, relationship or sin that entangles you. Come to Him and open your heart and ask God to fill you with His love. God is not waiting for you to be perfect before He can love you. Let His love embrace you today, and when you experience the Father’s love you will never be the same again. You will no longer need to look to the bottle, your drug of choice or that unholy relationship that you are in, because the Father’s love will fill those empty places in your heart. This is a love that the world cannot give to you. No human relationship will ever be able to fill you like Jesus’s love. In our nation we are talking a lot about “love wins,” but only God’s pure and Holy love truly prevails and supersedes all fleshly love.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. Ephesians 2:4-5

 What ways do you feel unworthy of God’s love? How can we pray for you?