100 Days of Right Believing: Daily Readings from The Power of Right Believing (6 page)

R
emember the shunned Samaritan woman whose story you read on Day 10? When she asked Jesus why He (a Jew) would ask her (a despised Samaritan) for a drink of water, this was His amazing response: that she would ask
Him
for living water, the only thing that would satisfy her from within and slake her deep thirst for acceptance and love forever.

What an amazing Savior! Although this woman had a past of looking for love in all the wrong places that imprisoned her in shame and self-loathing, Jesus met her at her point of greatest need with the offer of Himself, the living water. He knew all that she had ever done and yet offered her the true intimacy that fully satisfies every aching need. He invited her to discover, taste, and experience His perfect and unconditional love.

Jesus is saying the same thing to you today:
If you only knew
who it is who comes to you in your darkest and weakest moments.
If you only knew
this gift of God who will never leave you nor forsake you, who has gone before you and who comes to you in the midst of your storms.
If you only knew
the One who reaches out to you even when you have failed and who doesn’t hold your past mistakes or present failures against you.

Beloved, if you only knew this gift of God who offers the living water of His unconditional, endless love to you and you drink of that love, you will never thirst again. You won’t need to look for love or acceptance in all the wrong places, have your heart broken and fearful about the future, and have your life derailed. You can wake up with a fresh expectation of good every day.

Jesus was essentially inviting the woman to ask Him for the living water of His love. Will you do that today? Your life will never be the same again when you personally experience His love!

I
heard a story of a minister from Oregon who was assigned to provide counseling in a state mental institution. His first assignment was to a padded cell that housed deranged, barely clothed patients. He couldn’t even talk to the inmates, let alone counsel them—the only responses he got were groans, moans, and demonic laughter.

Then the Holy Spirit prompted him to sit in the middle of the room and for a full hour just sing the famous children’s hymn that goes, “Jesus loves me! This I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to Him belong; they are weak, but He is strong.” Nothing happened at the end of that first day, but for weeks he persisted to sing the same melody with greater conviction each time: “Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so.”

As the days passed, the patients began singing with him one by one. Amazingly, by the end of the first month, thirty-six of the severely ill patients were transferred from the high-dependency ward to a self-care ward. Within a year, all but two were discharged from the mental institution.
¹

As one of the best-known and loved hymns of all time, this hymn’s ongoing popularity lies in its succinct elegance in unveiling Jesus’ heart. It beckons one to recognize that no matter what challenges, failures, and misdeeds one might be dealing with,
the love of Jesus remains a constant
.

“Jesus loves me! This I know.”

How so?

“For the Bible tells me so.”

So simple, yet so powerful.

Whether you feel it or not, Jesus’ constant love for you rests in the truth and on the foundation of His unchanging Word. It proclaims that His love for you and me is based utterly and completely on Him—on His promises, His work, and His grace. Today, let healing and rest for your soul come as you allow your heart to be anchored on this truth.

D
o you believe that God loves you with an unchanging love today? Even if you’ve just failed or made a mistake? This, my friend, is where the rubber meets the road in our Christian walk every day.

I’m here to tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt that God loves you with an everlasting love. His love for you is unconditional (see Titus 3:3–5
NASB
). It is a love that is so pure, pristine, and marvelous. It has nothing to do with your performance, but everything to do with who you are in His eyes—His beloved. The emphasis of the old covenant of the law was all about your love for God, whereas the emphasis of the new covenant of grace is all about God’s love for you. The sum total of the law under the old covenant is, “You shall love the L
ORD
your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:5, see also Matt. 22:37, 40).

Let’s be honest here. Have you ever met anyone who can love God this way? Of course not. It’s a human impossibility. The law was designed to show us that we are incapable of loving God perfectly.

Knowing that man wouldn’t be able to fulfill His commandment to love Him with all his heart, all his soul, all his mind, and all his strength, do you know what God did? He demonstrated how only
He
could love us with all His heart, all His soul, all His mind, and all His strength when He sent His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from all our sins with His own blood. That is why the new covenant is all about God’s love for you and not your love for Him! Under grace, God doesn’t want you to focus your thoughts on, “Do I really love God?” That’s not the focus of the new covenant. Under grace, God wants you to focus on
His
love for you. Therefore, the questions you should be asking yourself are:

“Do I know how much God loves me today?”

“Do I really believe that God loves me right now?”

Choose to believe right about how God loves you today. It makes all the difference in the world to how quickly you are able to get back on your feet, and go from faith to faith and strength to strength in your walk with Him.