"Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God..." John 1:12
Al Franken used to play a character on Saturday Night Live named Stuart Smiley. He did a segment called Daily Affirmations. Stuart would look into the mirror and say, “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And gosh darn it, people like me.” I was reminded of this recently when a woman I respect was leading a Bible study. She said, “God loves. He likes me. And He has work for me to do.”
Most of us grasp the fact that God loves us, after all, the Bible tells me so. We have learned about this from the first moment we stepped in Church. If you don’t know this, then I will remind you again. God loves you! God doesn’t just love the collective us. The you all. The general group. He loves you specifically and personally. Just as He loves me personally and specifically. Most of us can understand that God loves us. Maybe we don’t understand why, but we know He does. This truth is throughout the Scriptures. It is displayed most prominently at Jesus’ death on the cross.
The thing we have a much more difficult time understanding is that God likes us. He delights in us. He adores us. I myself see this as a truth that is easily true of other people, but not so much of me. After all, I am the chief of sinners. I am too bad. Too selfish. Too broken. Too ungifted to be delighted in by God. He is the King of the Universe. And yet He calls me friend. God adores us because His adoration is not based on who I am or what I’ve done, but on who He is. He is benevolent, merciful, gracious, unfailingly kind, so He delights in me. He takes pleasure in me. I am His child and just as my earthly parents are filled with joy by me, just as they delight in me, my Heavenly Father delights in me as well. And more so because He is the one who formed me in my mother’s womb. Who knew me before I was ever even a thought to my parents. He delights in me even more because I wasn’t born to Him by labor pains or desired by a husband. But because He sought me and bought me by His death on the cross. Every time I seriously consider this truth, I have to pause for a moment because I am so taken aback. Even now, I find it hard to continue writing because words cannot express the awe I feel now.
Brothers and sisters, soak it in. Meditate on it. Believe it. You are God’s child. He loves you, but He also likes you.
