Can You Accept It?

Have you ever doubted Jesus’ love for you? 

I know I have. More than once.

Perhaps it’s after falling back into old sin patterns. Perhaps it is after behaving most abominably towards a friend or fellow believer. Perhaps it is when the selfishness within rears its head and you don’t like yourself for it. It’s a question I addressed in a previous blog (Outlander: Into the Darkness). A question my heart has cried out in the depth of despair and pain, “how can you love me like this?!” It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense that He keeps choosing me time and time again, when I keep handing Him sin and selfishness in return. My complaints. My doubts. Picking up expectations He never asked of me. It doesn’t make sense when I can’t possibly love Him as He deserves in return. Why Father, why do you love me? Why do you love us broken people? I do not understand this love.

And maybe, that’s the point. 

I am a big fan of historical period dramas. Jesus knows this about my little heart and so leave it to Him, the Great Pursuer, to speak to me of His love through one of my favorites. It happened as I was re-watching Poldark. Poldark follows Cornishman Ross Poldark as he returns home to Cornwall from the Revolutionary War to rebuild his life. It involves copper mines, a bull-headed protagonist, family feuds, love unexpected as well as unrequited.

Anywho, there’s a moment early on in the first season when Ross ends up marrying his kitchen maid, much to the disbelief and incredulity of the local gentry. Demelza, Ross’s now wife, worries about it and can’t seem to wrap her mind around why they are together and how Ross could choose her. Here is the exchange:

DEMELZA: Folks will wonder. They won’t understand. I don’t rightly understand. 

ROSS: You’re not required to understand. You’re required to accept it as a fact of life. 

In that moment, Holy Spirit spoke into a deep part of my heart that at times, wonders at the love Jesus has for me. My heart echoes Demelza’s, “I don’t rightly understand.” Have you ever been here? I mean, just look at these few passages from Scripture (there are countless more like it) which shed light on His love:

“For one will scarcely die for a righteous person — though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die — but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” -Romans 5:7-11

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:38-39

“‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” -Isaiah 54:10 

“See what kind of love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are!” -I John 3:1

“By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.” -I John 4:13-19

I don’t rightly understand this extravagant, outrageous, even scandalous love He claims for me and for you. Isn’t it too good to be true? 

Why?

How? 

What. 

I truly don’t get it. 

His response? 

You’re not required to understand. You’re required to accept it as a fact of life. 

I think part of the beauty of the mystery of the Gospel is the fact that we will never fully know or understand until we see Him face to face. Paul says it like this in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” Spending all our time and energy digging for answers or building reasoning isn’t a bad thing in and of itself, but I think it can be when we end up missing Him. If we’re constantly questioning, telling God we don’t understand His love, so therefore it cannot really be true…gosh isn’t there an arrogance in that? It feels like an intentional stiff arm, which clearly only causes distance in your relationship with Him. I know there have been times in my life I kept Him at arm’s length because I couldn’t make sense of the goodness and depth of His love. I couldn’t accept it at face value. I was relying on me – my own understanding and experience. That, my friends, is called foolishness. What do those famous verses in Proverbs direct us to do? 

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” -Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in who? Myself? The world? The voices around me? May it never be! Wisdom is walking in fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10). Wisdom is trusting HIM with ALL your heart. Nothing held back. No distance. No stiff arming. Take Him at His word. Faith is about who He is and what He has done. Throughout Scripture, time and time again, God wears His heart on His sleeve unashamedly for humanity – it is a love of surpassing passionate fidelity. 

Brothers and sisters, friends, we are not meant to understand this love. How could we? This is God we’re talking about! We are, however, meant to accept it. To take Him at His word and believe – there must be faith involved! That involves choice. I think there is an immense difference in coming before Him with a frustrated or defensive, “I don’t get it Lord!” versus a contrite and humble, “I don’t get it Lord.” 

He loves because He is God. 

He loves you because He just does. 

It is fact because He has said so. 

Hearing the Lord speak through this scene in Poldark – that I am not required to understand His love for me – oh what relief I felt! Like exhaling a long held breath. What a timely reminder. I just have to accept it and take Him at His word. What joy and freedom! That frees me up to spend my time enjoying my Beloved – His presence, His truth. For me, this acceptance isn’t blind faith, but rather wonder-filled faith, for I see His character and nature and take Him as He is. I can marvel at His love, get lost in it, rest in it, and worship Him for it, largely in part because it’s too wonderful for me to comprehend! I choose to believe Him when He says He loves me. The prayer for spiritual strength Paul prays over the Ephesians in chapter 3 is sparked:

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named,  that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” -Ephesians 3:14-19

If anything, the acceptance of His love then sparks a desire for more! I want more of Him – more of His love. I want to get lost in its depths! Because I am so secure in His love, because it cannot be taken from me, I want nothing more than to be with the One who gives it so freely. I love this prayer because, well, just look at verses 18-19 again, “understanding the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Those follow from the previous verses, which is critical. Holy Spirit is the power at work within you, Christ dwelling in you through faith, and this prayer for understanding flows from what? Being ROOTED and GROUNDED in love – His love! It’s from the place of being sure of His love and accepting is as truth that the knowing, the understanding can begin. I hope you have followed me along this train of thought to realize it is not intellectual or head knowledge/understanding we are talking about here in Ephesians 3. It is interpersonal understanding. Do you think knowing the full dimensions of God’s love is something we can possibly arrive at now? Absolutely not! It’s a lifelong endeavor and even then, we won’t “arrive.” I can’t even find words to describe what I am trying to get at here, because there’s endless amounts of Him to know and experience! And yet in the seeking, in the process we find Him because He is THAT kind and THAT gracious and THAT loving and it’s never ending! 

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” -Jeremiah 29:13 

I hope in reading this today, you don’t hear me saying questions are bad or that there isn’t a need to dig into the Word or more of Jesus because we can’t understand His love, so why try? Far from it and quite the opposite really! If your end goal is strictly more head knowledge or a logical map, you’ve missed it…because you’ve missed Him.

What I am saying is that accepting His love opens the door for relationship. For intimacy. I don’t know what your friendships and relationships look like, but for me, I spend time with those I care about. With those I love. I want to get to know all the nuances of their character, their odd quirks and mannerisms, what makes them laugh, what breaks their heart, what makes them smile. The pursuit of getting to know someone, really knowing them, is ongoing and lifelong. This is what I think Paul is getting at in Ephesians 3. This is our life pursuit! Not mere knowledge, but Truth Himself. 

So if your end goal is to know (original Hebrew word yada – dig into that one for a fun and mind-blowing time), to experience Him, then I think you’re on the right track. 

Release the burden or expectation of understanding (for His peace surpasses all understanding as well, mmm?).

His love is meant to be accepted. As incomprehensible and magnificent as it is.

Can you accept it? 

Can you accept Him? 

I pray you can and that it leads you to more of Him – more joy, life, peace, hope, and love than you can possibly begin to imagine. That is what’s offered to you in a relationship with Jesus. Freely and unreservedly.

I’ll close with the lyrics of a Jess Ray’s song Too Good: 

He may be too good to be understood

But He’s not too good to be true