All That Counts

"For the creation was subjected to futility" Romans 8:19.
"Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?" Romans 7:24

It's a world of bent and broken promises, where the frustration of 'natural' futility and our own propensity to fail (not only others, but ourselves) encompasses us on all sides as we feel the days passing and our frailty increasing. We may try to 'better ourselves', but we know, beyond the rag-tag attempts to do this, or just to try and enjoy life, the only thing that really matters is a love and affection so deep and rich it embraces all of our motley souls and transports us into a romance that is all-pervasive - that affirms that it is all really worthwhile, and there's real hope about what's to come.

Far above all the wreckage of our moralistic pretensions or external face-saving, God has raised His only Son at the point of total devastation and termination of all we know as life, and it is there, at that very point, on the cross, that God makes all things anew. The motivation, then, for renewal or change no longer becomes how we do/do not feel or what we resolve, but what God has done - the renewal is certain, not because we (by mercy) now can love Him, but because He completely loves us, and it is that alone which makes us rich and makes us new.

The world around us is still broken and bleeding, and because we are, in part, still tethered to all of this, we still know, all too well, the pain and the misery of the gaping wound of what it means to be part of such a world - so often, our days here are marked with that sorrow - but the good news for those who look up to see the work of God's love in His Son is that this is no longer the only reality in this sick and dying place. Amidst all the mess and chaos, there is love, and it's a love deep enough and strong enough to set us free.

Genuine love motivates us to do that which truly shows our affection for the one we cherish, and the frustration we often feel as Christians is because we have known the sweetness of the love that has become ours, but we have, in some respects, become distant to it. We then may try to make our way back by all manner of moral and spiritual contrivances, but the solution is the very same as the first time we encountered such love - to look again to what God has made ours, forever, in His Son... that is our haven of certain peace.

God's love is ours purely because of who He is and what He does. Peace with God and the love and life which flows from this is purely because of this - it is 100% His gift, and all he truly wants of us is to both receive and enjoy the life which comes from Him. The troubles of this world will still snap and press upon us, but He calls us, as His children, to look beyond these, for the love we have encountered is but the first installment of the rich redemption that is drawing closer each day.