Sometimes we can live thinking that God’s like an examiner in a driving test, sitting there watching what we do, ready to make a note of all our minor and major faults. Or maybe we think that God has a big performance chart with our name on it, and at the end of each day He grades us to determine if He’ll love us more, or less, or not at all. We can get to the end of some days thinking ‘If I were God, I wouldn’t love me.’ We replay the day in our minds, judging ourselves and trying to anticipate God’s opinion of us. But we’re not God. God doesn’t save us by grace and then base how He feels about us on our spiritual performance. The Bible says, ‘God…out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved’ (vv. 4-5 NRSV). We’re chosen, we’re wanted, and God desires us to be part of His family. God took our sin and nailed it to the cross. He’s set us free. When Jesus cried from the cross, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30), God wrote ‘Paid in full’ over every sin we’ll commit. Sometimes we can forget how much of a sacrifice God made to save us. But we should never forget that it’s because we’ve been saved by grace that we’ve got a full relationship with God and eternal life. That grace also means we don’t have to guess the level of God’s love. We already have it, and it’s the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

What now?
Make a list of all the ‘major and minor faults’ that you’ve done today. Then over the top of all of them, in big letters, write ‘GOD LOVES ME ANYWAY’.