Have you ever seen water run off a duck’s back? It’s a great analogy of how we should treat unkind comments. “But they hurt my feelings,” you say. Interesting that we call them my feelings when we are essentially giving someone else control over them. If they are really your feelings, then others do not have control over them unless you give it to them!
It’s not what others say about you that really counts anyway. It’s what God says about you and…. what you say about yourself that counts. When you know whose you are, you won’t let others define your worth.
I am finishing up a book by Joyce Meyers entitled God Is Not Mad At You. (good title, huh??!!) She repeats the title statement at the end of each chapter to drive home the point that God is not mad at us. He loves us. He’s for us. He’s with us. He will never leave us nor forsake us. God, through Jesus, loves us unconditionally. When we are able to wrap our minds around the fact that what He thinks of us far outweighs what any person thinks of us, we will find true peace and contentment. How do we find that? Through developing a close, personal relationship with Jesus… and by studying His Word— the Bible.
There is one statement that Meyers states in the Intro which is still buzzing around in my mind. Let this one work on you: “God loves us because He wants to… not because we deserve it.” WOW!!
None of us deserve God’s love. He loves us just the way we are! That doesn’t mean that He wants us to stay the way we are. But… we don’t have to “clean up our act” before we are “good enough” to come to Him. Let His grace change you. As our pastor said yesterday in his message, “Grace is the only thing that can really change us.” Grace comes from God. and as the old hymn says, it is amazing!
