Casandra Martin

“Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all.” – Frederick Buechner

Today brings a gentle touch to your shoulder and a whisper to remind you that you are deeply, gloriously, unconditionally, overwhelmingly loved.

You are not loved because of what you do, where you live, how much you give, or who you know. You don’t have to have it all together to be loved. You don’t need to know all the answers, have figured out any of life’s puzzles, or even made all the right decisions. You are wrapped in a blanket of warm love because God has chosen to love you. Right now. Right where you are. Right in the mess you find yourself in. You can’t change His mind or chase Him away. You can choose not to love Him back. You can choose to pretend that love doesn’t exist. But the truth that God loves you is more certain than the sun rising in the east or the sky being blue. You can build a life and an eternity on that truth.

The world’s hissing tries to defeat that truth from taking deep root in your heart. The lie that God doesn’t really love you is Satan’s only weapon. All of our doubts and fears find their genesis in our struggle to believe the absolute unchanging nature of God’s deep love for us.

My Jesus Resolution today is to sing ‘Jesus Loves Me.’ As one of my friends tells her son – sing it loud and proud. I need to sing it loud in order to drown out the volume  of the world’s distractions and deceptions. I need to sing it loud to answer the doubts that well up in my own heart. But I also need to sing it proudly, unashamedly, with great confidence, and with conviction. “Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.”