When I was your age, I worked really hard for months to collect and save dimes to send to missionaries in Guatemala. I saved so much that my church gave me an award!
The pastor sat all of us kids on the stage and called our names, one by one, to shake his hand and get our certificate. When it was my turn, the congregation clapped very loud…well, it was mostly my mother because she was so proud of me! I was proud of myself too, and even more than that, I felt like God was the proudest He had ever been.
Before this, I had done quite a few things that I knew didn’t make Him proud. Like the time I decided to draw big red check marks all around our living room walls. Or the time I screamed, “I HATE YOU!” so loudly at my brother that he ran out of the room and cried.
Yup, I had a pretty long list of not-so-proud moments. No matter how hard I tried, I could never seem to do the right thing all of the time. But on that day, on that stage, I knew I had done my best and it felt great!
The only problem was that I did not realize God loved me the same whether I was standing on the stage accepting an award or buried shamefully under the pillows on my bed. I didn’t know that even when I messed up, God still loved me.
Maybe you have a list of not-so-great behaviors and wonder if God could still love you. The answer is yes! He will never stop loving you. You can never do enough good things to make Him love you more. And you can never do enough bad things to make Him love you less.
Romans 8:38-39 says, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This means that your behavior has nothing to do with God’s love for you. His love does not grow and it certainly does not shrink! His love is like the ocean—big and deep, and reaching further than your eyes can see, every single day of every single year. Always remember that you are loved by the creator of the world and no matter what you do, you can’t make Him change His mind about that!
Dear God, thank You for loving me no matter what! Help me to remember that Your love never changes. Will You help me love others the way You love me? In Jesus’s name, amen.