He loves me the same

On our way home, my brother and I listen to Breath of Heaven. On this particular day, my mind was very alert

A phrase in the song saying “You see the depth of my heart but You loves me the same.” got me thinking: He sees the depth of my heart yet He loves me the same. What is hidden in my heart?

Sometimes I go through very tough times. Someone said “tough times and tough questions are inseparable twins.” In those times, my heart tends to shift from focusing on How great a God He is, to magnifying my problems because “what you focus on you magnify. In this season, I might throw tantrums asking so many questions. I could even be reacting in a very irrational manner but His love doesn’t change just because I am being irrational. He loves me the same.

In my human mind, there are times I feel like I have been a very good Christian; I have done almost everything right. At other times I feel like I have failed as a Christian; that I have failed in representing Jesus to the fullest. In those times when I am on both extremes, He loves me the same.

When we look at recipients of grace from a human perspective, we may tend to feel that some people don’t deserve grace. Luckily, it is not up to us to decide who receives grace and who doesn’t. When God looks at that old man who wasted his youth in sin, having done all sorts of things and that other old man who has been in church his whole life, He loves them the same. It really is not about what we do. We are all recipients of grace, an unmerited favor.

His name is God. His nature is loving. In Jonah 4, Jonah complains to God when God decides to forgive Nineveh. He says

And he prayed to the Lord and said, I pray You, O Lord, is not this just what I said when I was still in my country? That is why I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and [when sinners turn to You and meet Your conditions] You revoke the [sentence of] evil against them.

Another version says

He prayed to the LORD, “O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.

Many of us are like Jonah. We get annoyed with God because we feel that some people don’t deserve grace. We could even feel that some good things should not happen to some people and we become bitter when they do. Turning the coin, we could fee that some bad things should only happen to some people and not others. I would charge us to begin seeing people as God would. Having become beneficiaries of the sacrifice at calvary, we ought to extend grace even to those who don’t look like they deserve it. After all, He loves us all the same.