God’s Lavish Love…
Happy Monday everyone!
I’m in the middle of probably over 100 boxes spread around my house right now. Literally amongst them as I write this… see for yourself:
We went to the last storage unit we had here in Colorado since moving from California, almost 6 years ago now, and we had some guys help us bring ALL of it to our house. So now I have the huge task of going through it, donating hopefully 90% of it, and finding a place in this house for the rest of it. Not like I have anything else to do, right? lol
This morning as Victoria came over I was telling her how bad I felt that we have this much STUFF! Like I feel sinful about it. We accumulate so much STUFF in life and where does it end up? In the trash? Recycled, sent to Goodwill and maybe 10% of it is passed on to the next generation?
My take away from this:
Accumulate memories, not things.
This is something that has convicted me this past weekend and I’m honestly working out my thoughts as I write this. But I’m also sharing this with you today because I’m writing the devotional for this years retreats on the Sovereignty of God and His amazing grace, and I think it all fits together.
Have you ever thought about the word LAVISH? Probably not, unless you’ve watched TV shows about the “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” and thought how lavish their lifestyles are… or like me, you see all the things you’ve accumulated in life and feel like maybe you’ve been too “lavish” with your spending over the years.
I get it, and I know this may hit a bit too close to home, (especially with us crafters/creatives who have a tendency to hoard craft supplies :)
But I want to remind you of something you may not have thought of when thinking about the lavish lifestyle of others…or your own.
Did you know the Bible talks about this word LAVISH?
Listen to 1 John 3:1: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”
The word “Lavish” in the verb tense here means to: “bestow something generously, to give freely, or to shower upon us.”
Listen also to Ephesians 3:-10: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, with which He favored us in the Beloved.”
“In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace which He LAVISHED on us. In all wisdom and insight He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He set forth in Him, regarding His plan of the fullness of the times, to bring all things together in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.”
God’s LAVISH LOVE for us?
Yes! Ladies, if you’ve given your life to Christ, you are a NEW creation. You are a child of God. You are forgiven, and you are lavished upon with His love and grace. Let that sink in for a moment…
You also have the Holy Spirit living within you: helping you, convicting you, leading you, drawing you back to Christ, and this new life in Him.
What lavish love the Father has for His children…and NOTHING we can do on our own will ever bring us close to this kind of love. No gift, no fancy car, nothing in any of those boxes in my basement (or yours)… NOTHING we do and nothing we can buy will truly satisfy us, or bring about God’s love towards us. It is His kindness, His love and His richness of grace bestowed on us “according to the good pleasure of His will…” that satisfies every cry of our hearts.
If you want to talk about lavish lifestyles…
This is such LAVISH love friends, it’s hard to contemplate, but it’s true and our hearts know it.
So be encouraged today in this:
God’s not calling us to be perfect, to give everything away, to work to make it right, or to sit in fear or guilt about the sins we’ve committed. We can never “get it right” on our own. God doesn’t love us because we are good or working towards good. God loves us because He is sovereign over ALL and He LAVISHES His love on those He loves.
I’ll leave you with this reminder from Ephesians 2 as I end this blog post:
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
It is a FREE gift friends.
He blesses us, He bestows His grace upon us, and He freely lavishes His love on us as a gift we won’t ever deserve, and we won’t ever work up to. But through faith… we get to walk out this incredible journey of life with Jesus Christ. Yes & Amen.
Our finite minds will never fully understand the love of our infinite God, but let these thoughts bring about the AWE of God in your heart today, and rest in them my friends.
Hugs to all,
Laura McCollough
P.S. I want to make sure you know how thankful I am for YOU and for the role you play in these retreats God has called me to. For those who are spreading the word about them, thank you! For those handing out the postcards I sent out, thank you! For those still praying about joining us this year, thank you! (we have a couple apartments left) I know God is working all things for His good and His glory in all of it and that is LAVISH love for sure…