Dive Deep

deep |diːp| adjective 1 extending far down from the top or surface: She dove deep, down into His love.

A friend of mine has been calling herself a "newborn" Christian for many years now. She has been serving the Lord and going to church regularly, and I began to wonder why she would consider herself a new believer when she has been in the family of God for so long.

Through our conversation, I began to realize that though she understood the Gospel and God's forgiveness of her sins through the sacrifice of Jesus, she had not yet fully accepted or understood the greatness of His love for HER, specifically. 

She had been trying to make herself "good enough" for God's love by obeying all of His commands and regulations found in Scripture, but she would always come up short–believing she was not a "mature" believer, but a newborn, just learning and hoping to be better someday. 

But the truth is, we ALL come up short when it comes to our righteousness compared to God’s! Whether we have been Christians for decades, or for only a few months. Even Paul, who wrote the majority of the New Testament, talks about struggling with sin in Romans Ch. 8:14-25... 

"So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin. I don't really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don't do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it." 

In order to really understand Christianity, we have to first understand God's character–and God's character is love. God's love for humanity is shown throughout scripture from the patience He had with the Israelites in the desert to the mercy he showed to prostitutes and tax collectors in the New Testament, to the greatest act of love the world has ever known–through the sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus. 

God is love, and the Bible defines love this way in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:

"Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." 

If you don't understand God's love for you, then you will never fully understand God's character and it will be really hard for you to comprehend the kind of purpose and destiny He has for your life. If you don't understand the depth of His love for you, then you will never be able to live in the fullness of freedom, grace, and mercy.

"And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully." Ephesians 3:18-19  

My favorite part about that scripture is the part where it says we should understand His love, though it is too great to understand completely. His love for us is incomprehensible! 

The very purpose of your life, the reason you were created, was to be loved by God. That is where your purpose and destiny begins! When we fall deeper in love with God and start to understand His character, it is then that we start to understand our purpose in life. When we really begin to grasp this concept, our entire outlook on Christianity and God will change. 

You are no longer a "newborn" believer. From the moment you accept God's loving sacrifice for you through Christ as your Savior, you are fully forgiven and free! 

XO-

Sabrina