We have been called and chosen.  Why?  Just one reason—Almighty God desired to love us.  Paul says that God has set His love on those whom He loves from all eternity (Ephesians 1:4).  If you are a child of God, there has never been a time when God did not know you and did not love you.  Before you were even born He had determined to set His love on you.  He chose us not because we were love-able; but we become love-able because He chose us and desired us.

In this is love: not that we loved God,
but that He loved us
and sent His Son to be the propitiation (the atoning sacrifice) for our sins.
1 John 4:10

You see, at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person,
though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.
But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:6-8

From the foundations of time, Sovereign Almighty God has desired His children. And He made a way—a very, very hard way—for sinful, not love-able people to be brought to His Holy Self.  And that was through the sacrifice and death of His Son, Jesus Christ.  And then through the centuries leading up to the perfect time when Jesus would come to the earth to show this incredible love, at sporadic times there were a few people who recognized this love that God had for mankind. David the psalmist was one.  He wrote many, many times about the reality of God’s love for himself.

And even Job, through all his worryings and complainings and the very difficult times he had, I believe he knew and was convinced of God’s love for man. Listen…

What is man that you make so much of him and that You set Your heart on him,
and visit him every morning…?
Job 7:17 and 18

God spoke through any number of the prophets declaring to the people He was drawing to Himself of His love, grace, and mercy and His desire for mankind.

Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works,
but according to His own purpose and grace
which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity,
2 Timothy 1:9

I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.
Jeremiah 31:3

Particularly, through the life of one prophet, Hosea, God showed what the depth of His love looked like…right alongside the depravity of the idolatry and whoredom of His people.  The whole book of Hosea illuminates this truth but in particular I love one verse:

I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love,
and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,
and I bent down to them and fed them.
Hosea 11:4

And then Jesus came! And showed clearly the depth of God’s love for mankind. He lived love to the nth degree always being the epitome of God’s love.

Now here is Truth (I know it is so because it is in God’s Word)…truth hard to comprehend but true nonetheless!

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39

Such love is beyond our ability to grasp with our minds, but it is not beyond our ability to experience with our hearts. Only through the power and influence of the Holy Spirit are we able to do so!

…And that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge,
that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:17-19

Truly not feasible by our own doing, our own efforts, our own works. BUT, because God tells us so through Paul’s encouragement to the church at Ephesus, we KNOW it to be true! And this is the awesome Truth of God’s desiring us—it is not based on you or me but completely on Him!

May I share something with you?  At the very beginning of today’s chapter, Mrs. Myers asks her readers to “Allow the Lord to fully convince your heart that He desires you.”  I had an extremely difficult time taking that step.  You see, on any given day, I have not been convinced that Almighty God desired me.  Let alone ask Him to ‘fully convince my heart’ of that fact.  But…today I did ask.  And He is doing so!!!  Oh, I have a <prior> lifetime of being fully convinced that perhaps God might desire everyone else but not me.  But that is not too much for our Father to deal with!  For little me, Coleen Ann Brigit McElroy Hayden, “I am <becoming> convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate <me> from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus <my> Lord.”  How about you?

♥  ♥  ♥  ♥  ♥

God loves you!  ♥  (Don’t ever forget that!)