To Be Perfectly Loved

The last few months have been a good, hard deep-dive of spiritual development. And when I say “dive,” I really mean “partial drowning.” See, I was crippled with anxiety, chained by my own efforts to control, and paralyzed by the fear of man.

To be honest, I haven’t written in such a long time because I’ve felt such a pressure to write the right things. And to eloquently capture what God has been doing in my heart just isn’t possible. So, I’ve been waiting for impossibility to strike in the form of creative muse.

Here we are, in mid-November, and I feel ill-equipped but strongly compelled to write a few words of encouragement. But I realize that in many ways, that’s part of the problem. It’s part of what I’ve been processing for months. Pressure.

Largely by my own volition, I found myself back against a wall a few months ago. The internal pressure I’d been feeding–compounded by the realities of adulthood–left me mentally and spiritually paralyzed.

See, perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18), but perfectionism bids it a warm welcome. And I had become host to a number of fears.

Do you feel that way today?

Here’s the good news. In the words of Paul, “But God.”

Now, there’s a lot more to that verse than those two words. I know because I’ve spent the past few months studying (i.e. still studying) the book of Ephesians. After listening to it almost daily for a month this past summer, I thought I’d grasped its message. Turns out, I’d hardly scratched the surface. So when I found myself flailing at life and approached with an opportunity to really study Ephesians, I took the deep dive.

Ephesians is an incredible book about a Christian’s identity in Christ; six chapters of powerful truth about who we are and we ought to live.

So who are you?

God’s Word says that if you trust in Christ, you are loved. You are chosen to be His. You are made alive and you are raised up. You are seated with Him. Friend, that means you are given a seat at His table. There’s a spot for you because Christ, the perfect High Priest, says that the work is already done (Heb. 4:14-15). And so you rest.

You are created to do good works—wonderful, marvelous things that you can’t even imagine; things that bring joy and shine the light of Christ to the world. And it is through Christ that you can breathe. He died for you, and because of that sacrifice, you have been brought near. Near, to the Almighty God! I doubt we’ll ever comprehend the magnitude of such a statement, and yet we live in it daily. I hope that brings awe to your heart.

Friday, you are being built into a dwelling place of the Holy Spirit because God is not finished with you. That means that no matter how anxious, selfish, sinful, or screwed up you feel, you’re a display of the redemptive work of Christ in action.

Choose to believe that today. We are perfectly loved even when we aren’t perfect or lovely at all. That’s how good our God is.

Love,

Hannah