The Greatest Love of All Time.
a quick note :)
You don’t have to believe in God for me to work with you. I love YOU - come as you are :) God didn’t reveal Himself to me by yelling at me or telling me I was wrong, so likewise I will not try to change you.
However, I would be lying if I said that I believed everyone has their own truth. Truth is this: we were created to be loved by God.
The words on this page are proof of God that God can take someone broken (me lol) and show them purpose, life, hope, and true freedom. I was broken, lost and dead, drowning in crippling fear. But then God♡ He transformed my life, and I will forever live my life to sing of what He’s done for me - and for you!
first, a metaphor that might make sense.
Some people associate religion with following rules.
Let’s say you picked up a guitar and played it with the strings facing your body as you strummed the back of it? Or what if you turned it to face outwards normally, but you just picked at the strings, playing random notes in random orders, completely disregarding the structure of scales and chords. It sounds terrible, but are you free? In a way yes. It’s chaos and purposeless, but you’re doing whatever the heck you want to do.
But what if in learning the structures and chords of the guitar and being able to play around that, you were actually led into freedom through serving the purpose that the guitar was created to serve? Doesn’t that mean that the “rules” actually created a song more beautiful?
True freedom in this life is found in knowing how we were meant to live, just like how knowing how the guitar was meant to be played leads to a beautiful melody. Life with God isn’t about following rules. Life with God is all about getting back to our purpose.
in the beginning, GOD created.
The Bible starts in the book of Genesis with the verse “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.”
On the surface, this verse is relatively bland and simply tells in a declarative manner what God did. Really though, this verse sets up the entire rest of the Bible. This verse establishes God’s aseity, or the attribute of God that speaks of His ability to exist entirely with what He can provide for Himself. This means that He doesn’t need ANYTHING from us or anything we could possibly offer. You might be thinking “uh.. duh. That’s what being ‘God' means…” However, without establishing His aseity, all of the 31,101 other verses that follow become meaningless, because if God lacked something that we possessed and He desired, both our relationship with God and His creation would be created purely out of obligation.
whatcha doin’ God?
So why did God create it all? After all, He didn’t need it. He didn’t create it out of a void of His own being. So why? God created the heavens, the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars, the sea, the land, the animals, the plants, the trees, ALL of it purely so that we might know Him and His Love.
If you don’t know Jesus, or maybe you’re just going through a rut and are resonating with the doubt, you might be thinking, “God seems kinda vain…? Why serve God if He demands we praise Him, honor Him, and give Him what we have (supposedly) earned?” And that’s a valid reason; I’ve been there. What you’re missing, though, is that the bottom line of life is that we were created by God to dwell in the midst of God. So God calling us to know Him is the most sacred act of Love, because He knows that’s how we become whole.
Once, we were dwelling with God in person. This was at the very start of the world when God, out of response to His overflowing love, created Adam and Eve in His image. They were completely free, alive, and superfluously provided for by God in the garden of Eden, where He placed them. They were in perfect union with God - fully as they were created to be.
However, because we were given free will, sin entered the world through Adam and Eve acting on temptation from satan. Free will can be defined as possessing the freedom to choose a path. In that moment, Adam and Eve, having been deceived by satan, chose to disobey God. They lost sight of Who God was because satan made them question His love and abundant provision. The perfect union between God and man was severed, and man’s heart was no longer filled by the satisfying Love of God, but polluted by brokenness.
God gave Adam and Eve, and gives us today, space to not choose Him, but with not choosing Him comes dissatisfaction and fleeting comfort from the things this world tells us make us happy - like putting a band-aid on a bullet hole. This isn’t because God is punishing us for not choosing Him, but because we were designed to dwell with Him; He has all that we need. So when our actions fall outside of our purpose, we will not be content. You don’t ask a carrot to saw a wood plank in half. Why? Because a carrot’s purpose is to be eaten, not to cut wood. Likewise, it is our life’s purpose to be in communion with God, not to be all-powerful and all-knowing.
the foundations of Grace.
But then God immediately made a promise. Theologians (a.k.a. cool Bible nerds) call this promise in Genesis 3:15 the Protevangelium, or the first Gospel. In it, God states that He will crush the serpent’s head (satan’s noggin), defeating sin once and for all! Sounds like the most epic Marvel movie, right?
After God made that promise, life went on (obviously, because we’re still chillin’ here). Humans multiplied and God did lots of super cool things to ensure that His people knew of His Love. Simultaneously and unfortunately, humans did lots of super uncool things, some of them blatantly choosing to hate God. The barrier between God and man seemed to keep getting thicker, and animal sacrifices were offered in temples to display the people’s trust and to attempt to restore the once-perfect union between God and who He created them to be. However, these were temporary fixes, because the people were still imperfect and kept turning away from the Lord. Remember this part for later! God kept pursuing, but the people just couldn’t seem to stay by His side.
In God’s loving grace, He was determined to dwell with His people, and He allowed a very specific way in which we could commune with Him inside a temple. There were two main sections of the temple - the place where only the high priest could enter once a year to confess the people’s sins, and the place where the Presence of God dwelled where no man could ever enter and live. Between the two sections hung a curtain spanning the height and width of the temple separating us from His Presence. While this was better than the aimless wandering that was going on prior, it still wasn’t the same as being united with the Lord, as we were created to be.
Throughout the plethoras of years following, God spoke to men and women of faith about a coming Messiah, One that would come to save them from this grueling pit of death the world had become, One Who would restore God to His people, and His people to their purpose. These cool people were called by God to send messages to people all over the world. People groups, cities, and even specific rulers were brought near to the Lord through these men and women who answered the Lord’s call to His children. They weren’t perfect or qualified, but God made them able. This is the old Testament, or the first 2/3 of the Bible!
An estimated 400 years went by, and then, in the perfect timing that can only be orchestrated and understood by God Himself, a boy named Jesus was miraculously born to a celibate woman named Mary and her fiancé Joseph. This is where the New Testament begins, or the last 1/3 of the Bible!
What’s totally wack, though, is that Jesus wasn’t just a miracle baby. He was God in flesh, the physical representation of the heart of God, the Word of God. God ached to be with His creation that He loved so dearly again, so much so that He ordered time and space in order to dwell with us again. Yes, God communicated with people of faith prior to this in the Old Testament, but He deeply desired to be truly with us and for us to truly know Him. The mystery of who this faceless God was, who seemed as if He ruled from a distance, was obliterated with the dwelling Grace of Jesus. Through the way Jesus lived, people saw the unconditional love of God in person. He was the light of all mankind, paving a path for all to know of the relentlessly pursuing love of God. Not many people really understood that, though, until Jesus’ ministry started.
the ministry of the Son of God.
Bible scholars say that Jesus was about 30 when His ministry, or acts of service and love to people in order to let others know about God, started.
The culture at that time was so divisive. You were either Jew or Gentile, left or right, this or that. If you were one, you didn’t associate with the other. Sound familiar? Humans haven’t changed in the last 2,000ish years. There were social outcasts banned from social spaces. There were people deemed unloveable because of their mistakes and diseases. The people driving these people out were religious leaders, called the Pharisees. They sought out to be perfect, following all of the “rules” of religion, and publicly shunned anyone whose sin became public. This is slightly amusing because the Pharisees were full of pride and greed … which aren’t super cool things …and are un-Christ-like and and sinful … but it was in private so it’s okay right? NO. Silly gooses.
During those years, Jesus rejected every single standard of society and He just loved. Sometimes that looked like reminding people who they were, letting them know who their Heavenly Father was, or teaching them what their purpose was. Other times it looked like doing miracles and pursuing the rejected, the lame, and the sick. The Pharisees shamed the sick and the broken, but Jesus healed the unclean, raised the dead, touched the untouchable. Jesus took every single opportunity to let people know that they were seen, they were loved, and they were held by the unconditional Love of God.
He knew things and did miracles that only the Son of God, the Promised One, would be able to know and do… probably because He was. People spread the news that God’s Son, the Promised One, the coming Messiah had finally come, and they came from everywhere to see His miracles. People all around came to believe because of the Light of Jesus that shined into hearts so dead that life itself seemed impossible. It was a beautiful time.
the plot to destroy the Son of God.
Unfortunately, there were also a lot of people who believed Jesus was saying all the things He was just to get clout.
Jesus challenged the authority of the church, which might seem contradictory to what He should have been doing. But in reality, the church was run by the Pharisees who said “Look at me! Do as I do. I am perfect,” which as we’ve established was a big fat lie. The Pharisees feared that He would take their power and overthrow them. They didn’t want to lose the power they held and the fear they instilled in the people by wielding the people’s brokenness over their heads like flags. Jesus called the “perfect” Pharisees out on their greed and hypocrisy. He was shaking their credibility, and for good reason… because they sucked. The Pharisees’ hatred grew and grew until it drove them to plot Jesus’ death in the most humiliating way of that age: crucifixion.
Crucifixion is the executing of a person by publicly beating them, then nailing them to a cross to die. During this time, it was the capital punishment reserved for the lowest of criminals. Think of it as our modern day death penalty, but if it was slow and public. Horrific, right? Most criminals fought against the people who came to take them to their crucifixion with everything they had - valid.
The night before Jesus’ crucifixion, He was gathered in a garden with His closest followers, called the disciples. Thanks to Judas, someone who claimed to be a follower of Jesus, a mob of unbelievers were led to where Jesus was, and prepared to take Him to be tried as a criminal. The disciples started to panic, one of them, named Simon Peter, actually cut off one of the mob-people’s ear. Ouch. But Jesus ordered the disciples to stop fighting. Jesus complied and went with the mob, who led Him to the political council, called the Sanhedrin. As Jesus stood before them, they came to the conclusion that Jesus was blaspheming, or using the Lord’s name in vain. In other words, they claimed Jesus was lying about being the Son of God, despite all of the signs, authority, and miracles.
The governor and head of the council, a man named Pontius Pilate, declared that he couldn’t find anything to condemn or prove that Jesus was guilty. Just then, a riot started, pressuring Pilate to crucify Him - and he gave in.
Jesus walked peacefully and silently with the governor’s soldiers, carrying His cross to the top of a hill to die.
His public execution made for hundreds of witnesses to His death. But Jesus didn’t stay dead in His tomb. Three days later, Jesus’ tomb was found with the giant rock rolled away and with no body occupying it. Jesus rose from the dead!!!
new life.
So what? God came down from Heaven in flesh to dwell with us and show us His love for us, but then He just let Himself die? Bruh. Why would He do that? And then He wasn’t dead? What does all of this mean?
Remember earlier when I said that animal sacrifices weren’t enough to restore our union with God? Or that we could never be perfect enough to earn Him?
Turns out Jesus was. And Jesus can.
God came down from Heaven in the image of man and eradicated the mystery of Who God was - Jesus was the manifestation of the heart of God, lighting the way for us to really know our Heavenly Father. He was holy and blameless, yet died the death of the worst criminal. He was spotless and perfect, yet willingly, despite all of the power He held at His fingertips, chose to die. And why? To be the perfect, atoning, living sacrifice for our sins. His perfection was enough to cleanse us of all sin, freeing us from the weight of our imperfection, making a way for us to be united with God again!
You see, when Jesus died, literally the curtain that hung in the temple that separated us from God tore from top to bottom. This symbolized the fact that Jesus’ death obliterated anything that could ever separate us from the Love of God. We could never be good enough to deserve His Love, but Jesus made a way for us to be. Because of Jesus’ blood, we can dwell with the Father, and not just once a year and through a priest, but every moment because He lives inside of us!
you were made for more.
Our life’s purpose: to be loved by God.
Jesus died to unite us to God again, to bring us back to where we belong. We were created to be known and loved by the God of the universe. We ran, but He drew nearer. Nothing, not our imperfection, not our shortcomings, and not our sin, will ever separate us from the love of God.
This world is dark and broken. We were not created to chase the fleeting pleasures of this world - that’s why they will never ever satisfy our souls. God created us for more, and He is more than we could ever imagine.
He draws near. He wants you to know Him. He died for you. And He made a way for you to not be held down by the brokenness of this world. Seek Him. Come to Him with all of your questions. Let His Love fill you with life and hope like you’ve never seen before
His Presence is peace. His life is hope. His love is unconditional. And His mercy is always more.
One day, we will dwell with our Father in Heaven, fully walking with God without pain and heartache. But until then, God has called us to know Him, grow with Him, and trust Him as we tell people everywhere about His life-giving, satisfying, death-defying Love.
And that’s what this is :)