The message is simple: It is love. The Gospel is love. Jesus is love. Everything that the Lord does comes from a place of His great love for you and for me.
This is a love that can't be fully comprehended, but can be experienced by any and everyone. Yes, even the ones who feel like they can't possibly be loved. Yes, even the ones who have been told that they aren't loved. Yes, even the ones who don't think they deserve love. And yes, even the ones who claim that they don't want love.
You see, this love is a love like no other. It's a love that is open and ready for you to walk in fully. Regardless of who you are and what you've done. It's a love that knows everything about you, and still wants you. It's a love that has already accepted you. It's a love that does not want you to hide even the most shameful parts of yourself, but wants you to come, broken and beautifully, to experience what love really is. It's a love that restores. A love that redeems. A love that brings dead things back to life.
This is a love that gave everything so that we could enter in. This is a love that was not satisfied with keeping the sinners at a distance, but made the first move and took the first step to come running, chasing after us. At our lowest and furthest point from God, Jesus came, took our place on the cross, died and rose again that we might now live in close proximity to God's great love.
This is a love that will not hold back. A love that cannot hold back, even if you expect it to. Even if you want it to.
This is a love that is real. A love that is pure. A love that is true. And this is a love that is available to you today. This love is yours.
Jesus has given us full access into this great love. Though we were once far off, He has brought us in close. While we were once covered in sin and shame, His blood has washed us clean. While we were once marked and identified by our guilt and past mistakes, He gives us a new name. He marks us with His love, His grace, and His mercy. He calls us His own.
This love is better than anything you know and bigger than anything you could imagine. This is a love that does not and cannot run dry. There is more than enough of this love to go around. There is more than enough of this love for you day after day after day, beginning right here, right now.
God's love knows no bounds. It climbs the highest heights and ventures to the deepest depths to get to you.
His love for you fierce. It is strong. It is unchanging. His love for you is steadfast, and there is nothing that can stop it or take it away from you. Even sin does not hold that power. Because Jesus bore our sins on the cross, we are invited back into His marvelous love that we might dwell with Him forever.
Rest in His love today,
Elisha