I have been considering the possibilities of God’s deep, unconditional love. For many years I saw it as something reserved specifically for those who were “getting it right.” I tried all the self prescribed religious remedies I knew of with this goal in mind but only ended up in a worse place than where I began. Clearly the reprobate mind cannot engineer a solution for the reprobate soul.

I needed someone who had not been corrupted by this terminal disease. Only they could clear the obstacles that blocked the path between myself and God.

Enter Jesus. Where I had failed He succeeded. While even on my best day I could not hope to be more than a “child of disobedience” He established the model of obedience. While I knew nothing of true unselfish sacrifice, He laid His life down on my behalf. He is everything I was not and could never hope to be.

So I let go of my self made system of personal improvement and grasped onto what had already been done on my behalf. I entered into a personal relationship with the One True God, Creator of the universe not because I earned it but because Jesus loved me enough to lay down His life so that I, an imperfect person, could be made right with a perfect God through Him.

Relationship with God was never about my ability to get things right by my own strength. It was about accepting by faith what Jesus had already done to set things right. He laid His life down so that I could live.

So, I thank Jesus that what I have earned I have not received and what I have not earned I have received. It is by His blood that I have been made right with God and am now invited to call Him “Abba Father.”

Can anyone relate?

~ Mitch Salmon

Mitch Salmon is the founder of Fisher of Men Productions and a follower of Jesus Christ and proclaimer of the Good News – The Gospel of Christ Jesus!