But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

I had the pleasure of having a conversation with someone who had received Christ three months ago. Let’s call him Bill. Bill told me that although he was excited about his new life in Christ, he felt like he was walking on eggshells. Bill further explained that he felt like no matter how hard he tried, he frequently made mistakes (sinned) and didn’t know how God felt about him.

Before I knew it, I jumped on my chair, and with a resounding voice, I said, “HE LOVES YOU, BILL!!!!” LOL     

Okay, my response was nowhere near as dramatic. 🙂 I did tell Bill how much God loves him, and that He knew he would sin, which is precisely why Jesus came. We discussed the fact that we are saved by grace through faith, and there is nothing we can do to earn salvation.  Of course, I explained that grace doesn’t give us a license to sin and what true repentance is. He didn’t quite grasp it right away. It wasn’t until I said, “There’s absolutely nothing you can do to make God love you any more or any less.” that he seemed to kind of understand.

Bill’s eyes squinted as his gaze shifted to the sky. I knew he was pondering something, but I just waited until he was ready to share. After about a minute, he asked, “What am I supposed to do when I’m struggling?” And then he elaborated a bit.

My answer to his question, “Just Love Him Back. You spend time with the ones you love.” He responded with a nod.

The more time we spend with God, reading, studying, and meditating on the Word, praying, listening, submitting to His will, the stronger we become through Christ. Before we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are full of crap, and the enemy knows it. He tempts us based on our sinful nature, our struggles. How do we get rid of that crap? By loving God more than the crap. We have to submit to Him. It takes effort, a lot of effort, daily effort. And if you’re anything like me, by the second effort. 🙂 Just keeping it real.

James 4:7 says, Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

That’s a conversation that you’d expect from a new believer, right? Yeah, but I wonder how many Christians know, I mean really know how much God loves them. It wasn’t until I received God’s love by faith that I experienced true freedom. Does this mean that I won’t experience trials and that the enemy won’t try to tempt me? Hecky naw!! It means that I understand the pure fact that God loves me UNCONDITIONALLY because He wants to. Simple as that.

I’m not sure if Bill has completely grasped everything we talked about, but I’m confident that a seed was planted.

*****Confession time***** I have to admit, I was hoping one of the Christian men working that day would rescue me from that conversation. I mean, surely they heard what we were talking about because they walked by a few times. I even tried to get one of them to join the convo, but nope. Um, HELLO!! I’m not a man. Come talk to dis dude!! LOL I didn’t say that, but I was sho think’n it. (Excuse the slang. I included it to provoke laughter.) I dismissed that moment of pass-the-buck-itis and shifted my focus back to the Lord. He’ll use whoever is available. I did encourage some of the men to look after him, though.****Confession time over****

I pray whoever reads this knows how much Jesus loves you. If you don’t, #CheckYourHeart. That’s a fact you don’t want to ignore.

I’m not exempt . . .

I’m just Blogging It Out. Oh, and Happy FriYay!