He Loves You Because He Is Love (Graham Cooke)

I have to share this because it is so profound and challenging...it's from one of Graham's teachings:

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"This is the Christ that I know. He has immense and eternal compassion. His compassion is always greater than my sin. He is scandalously forgiving. His mercy burns as it destroys shame. He has unbounded patience, unending goodness. His love is so compelling it heals us; it strips away all our pretense and restores us to happiness. His grace is the empowering presence within that enables us to feel good about ourselves. His mercy is his totally favor given gladly to the undeserving heart. he's the kindess person I've ever known. His goodness is so outrageous and shocking, it's actually disreputable to the religious mind. He's the happiest person I know. He has the sunniest disposition of anyone I know.He is enthusiastically fervent with his pursuit for us. He is amazingly humble and gently and he is also a powerful warrior king who loves to fight and laughs at his enemies. He has a fabulous servant spirit--needing no title, status, or position, but simply and joyfully sets an example of heartwarming love. His love is enthrawling and captivates and commands us to be the same.His love is designed to overwhelm all things--especially fear, shame, and low self-esteem. He loves being trusted. He is delighted and astonished when we use our faith. He will never keep a record of our sins or failures. God has mercy that can never be properly understood or articulated; it can only be experienced. The only way we can explain this is if we give mercy ourselves.

Jesus the redeemer gives us value in the eyes of the Father. He sees and speaks to our potential. He both protects us and releases us to fulfill all that he wants us to see and know about ourselves. He has a dream for each one of us, and He wants us to live in the place of dreaming. Ps 126 says that we were like those that dreamed. God has a dream about you. And everything in his heart is to train you and develop you to bring you to a place where you can live out your dream.

The gospel is such good news that it is almost too good to be true. The gospel is such good news that it almost borders on fantasy. the good news is that you are loved outrageously. It doesn't matter what you do or how well you are doing. That's irrelevant. God does not love you based on how well you are doing. He loves you because He is Love.

One of the things that I learned in the last few years is, how do you love when love is not returned? Well the answer is, love doesn't seek the return. Love loves for the sake of loving. If you want to be faithful to love when you are not being loved, then you need to create a value that is greater than your pain. To me that value became, I am what I love, not what loves me. Where did that come from? It came from the heart of God who is outrageous in how he loves us.

God is not obsessed with sin. He has dealt with sin. He is consumed by life. We are in Christ learning how to become Christ-like. God put you into the one place where you will always be acceptable to Him--He put you in Christ. He put you in a place where you can always have your prayers answered--He put you in Christ. He put us into the one place where we could always could have he possibility of a radiant experience of God no matter what was occurring in life--He put us in Christ.

When God looks at us, He's not looking at us in the context of what's wrong. He's dealt with sin once and for all. When there are things that are wrong in our life He doesn't look them as what's wrong. He looks at what's missing in your current experience with God. Why? because we do this b/c we haven't got this. We sin because we haven't got this. We get involved in lust because we haven't got purity. The Father is saying, it's not lust that's his problem, his problem is that he hasn't got purity. We all know we have sin...we need to know what's missing...David said, my sin is ever before me.

You don't become a new person by changing your behavior. You discover the person you already are in Christ and you start to behave accordingly. That's what the holy spirit is here to bring us. This is who you are in Jesus, I'll help you to become that. God looks at you--he doesn't see what's wrong, he sees what's missing. He sees your potential. He sees what's missing in your current experience that he is committed to releasing to you." --Graham Cooke

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I could write out this whole teaching but it's an entire weekend conference...this is just a little snap shot...that was really a blessing to hear and challenging! I hope it blesses you!