what God does

"God is crazy about you. He’s all over you like a glove. God waits for you, hanging on your every word. He loves to hear you call to Him. He has been relentlessly pursuing you since before you were born; He sacrificed His Son to remove the barriers to His love for you; and He has plans for you that go way beyond anything you can imagine. How do I know all this? I’ve been reading about it in the Bible for most of my life, and I know it in my heart, and I’m telling you about it because I figure if I keep on like this, I’ll eventually begin to believe it for myself. Appropriating God’s unconditional love is not as given as it might seem. Jesus said we were to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, but what if I have a problem loving myself? Then the reverse is most likely true; I won’t love anyone else either. The only way you disqualify yourself from experiencing the unconditional love of God is to think of yourself as better than most everybody (my particular version of it) or to think of yourself as worse than most everybody (I’ve actually got a little of this, too). How tragic to be measuring and comparing ourselves — trying to qualify for a love we’re already qualified for just by being alive! Here’s how to end all this nonsense. Accept God’s love for you as totally undeserved. You’re just as much a scoundrel as the next guy, but here’s the amazing thing, God’s crazy about you. He looks at you and sees beauty. Don’t ask why or how; just believe it. Believe it and you’ll start to see people that way too. Then loving your neighbor as you love yourself will be a lot easier because you don’t think of yourself as better or worse than your neighbor; you are simply both recipients of the amazing grace of God when neither of you deserves it. Since when do you love people just because they exist? Since you found out that’s what God does! So when it comes to loving yourself, do what God does: Look at yourself and see something beautiful. Soon you’ll see everyone else that way, too." -John Fischer