For the Love of God

You aren't worthy and that's okay

You're worthless

You're nothing

You're trash

You're garbage

I grew up hearing those words quite often. Not from other people... actually people really enjoyed me, at least they acted like it. I grew up with a disease called Muscular dystrophy. Basically I have a mutation that leads to muscle deterioration. This is a key factor in my testimony, something I have had to cope with my entire life. It has affected me in so many ways, good and bad.

That is until around my seventh or eighth grade years of middle school. Around that time my grandmother was in the hospital dying slowly and by the looks of her it was painful. I remember the lasts words to her was I love you. That wasn't said to make the reader of this feel uneasy or sad just a fun fact but what was really odd was that God was at play here the entire time.

It is just amazing to see that even in a time of sorrow and grief the Lord is working through me and my family. I never really prayed until around this moment when she was there. I remember crying saying Lord don't let her die and Lord I need you. It was at that moment the Lord started working through me. Sadly she went home to be with Jesus on March 9th, 2009. Now I know exactly what you're thinking. "How does this show God's love? He took her when you asked not to let her die" but I say to you how selfish was I to demand such a request of Him? And did he let her die? See as people we look at death as this horrible awful thing not realizing that that's where God is very present. That is where God looks at someone and says "Your place in heaven is ready". Looking back on this situation I would not have said that. I would have been a bitter soul cursing God. Now let me clarify, I am not a theologian, as a matter of fact I am just a college student about to finish my first year. If this fact pushes you away from reading this then I am sorry but I urge you to stay and finish this.

It wasn't until after this event I was introduced to a program at my school called FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes). Although I called myself this Christian guy I had no idea what a follower of Jesus really was and sadly I wouldn't figure this out until this year (at the time of typing this).

Let me elaborate on what I meant by that. See, I looked at God as just this Santa Clause style figure in the sky with a staff. That's it. I looked at him just as a way out or just a little story in this book. But he is so much more than that. He is closer than a best friend, closer than your father and mother. As a matter of fact Jesus says to truly follow Him you must hate like everyone in your life even yourself. If you don't believe me go to Luke 14:26. In this Jesus is stressing the importance of Himself in our lives. He is telling us that He should be number one in our lives. This is evident in numerous places in the bible.

People, including myself, think that you can just add Jesus to your life and that be enough but I am sorry to tell you that's not going to cut it. You can't just add him you have to submit and make him your life. That is what is flawed with Religion and has been for centuries. Thinking we can just add a little Jesus with some Christian music and nice looking external behavior that we will be saved. Actually that seems like a pride issue.

When we look again in Luke chapter 15, in the parable of the Prodigal Son, this is one of my favorite parables in the book, one of the son's leaves, pretty much spits in the face of the father. He goes out and spends all the money that was given to him and actually has to live in a pig pen for a while and even share food with them. Sounds like the life I know... but he finally says I have been a terrible son, I will go back and beg to hopefully be a servant to my dad to make up for all my trouble I have caused him. The son says in the 17th verse "But when he came to himself, he said 'How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!" This part really describes me and how I felt when I finally came to Christ and wanting to pursue him 110%! Well he then heads back and this is when the story does a complete 180 on us. The father sees the son coming his way and keep in mind that it was frowned upon for older Jewish men to run, but the father saw him and ran to his son, not embarrassed of his action, and kissed him. Again remember the son had been filthy living with pigs and even eating with them and yet the father kisses him! In all his filth the father says I love you showing this in a physical way! I know I would have said go clean up and come back but no, he embraces him in all his filth and kisses him. That's what God did for me and can do for you. We don't have to clean up. We come to him in all of our filth and disgustingness and God embraces us in it. That is what's so great about God, He looks at us and sees all of our filth. Even if you wear nice clothes and are the most attractive model on planet Earth to worldly standards God sees through that and looks into your heart. I used to have a very bad self-esteem issue since I have this disease and am confined to a wheelchair. I have had very few worldly relationship because, keep in mind I'm not trying to get pity rather to prove a point, of the wheelchair. When I finally realized God looks past that I felt comfort and I felt like the son. I thought of all this sin I lived in. I was struggling in sexual sin, I gossiped all the time, cursed all the time. I did all this bad stuff behind peoples back. That is all God sees. He doesn't disregard my sin since he sees my wheelchair and say "sorry Heaven has stairs. You're out of luck" He looked at me in all my sin and loves me. I get emotional when I think of that and really you should too.

We ultimately just focus on those two characters of the parable but there is one that we forget. That is the older brother. During the party the father has thrown for the other son, the older comes up and hears the music and hears that his younger son is the reasoning for it. The older brother gets furious! He refuses to come in and celebrate but the father comes out and says "Son, you are always with me, and all that mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and now is found." Have you ever done that? The brother was very envious and jealous of this action his father took. I was taught that you have to be clean and perfect before following Christ and this parable shows that all those teachings to me were wrong. In my life I can really relate to the prodigal son and the church I went to very seldom is the older brother. I was undeserving of a party from God when I came to Him. Actually I still am, but I know that.

So if you are struggling and thinking I don't think God will love me yet or I am not deserving yet God loves you already and to the last one you're not. As Christian or perfect you think you are you still never come close to the greatness of the Lord and most likely you never will be and I can't remember where I heard or read this quote but I think it really describes how, as Christians we are supposed to act. It says "Christianity isn't about being perfect and deserving of grace, but realizing we aren't perfect and are in need of grace". We will never be deserving and once we realize that, your world will open up and the face of God will truly be revealed to you.