Come As You Are.

This past week I got to celebrate my parents' 32nd and my friends' 25th wedding anniversaries. While listening to Todd's message yesterday about John 3:16, I was drawn to him explaining what scripture means when it says "God so loved…”. I encourage you all to go back and listen to the message if you weren't able to attend.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

There seemed to be a theme lately of what love is. My parents and friends are a great reminder and example of love being selfless and unconditional, but even their love is nothing compared to the love of Christ.

I've struggled at times during my life of feeling unlovable by others and completely unworthy of Christ's love. The problem with this is there is nothing we can do to earn or separate us from God's love. God is love.

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins… God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him." (1 John 4:9-10,16)

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39)

I want to take this opportunity to invite you and any of your friends to come and see at The Porch tomorrow night. Before I understood the Gospel and God's love, I didn't understand how God could possibly love me because I've often ran from him and did what I wanted to. I really relate to LeCrae's song Take Me As I Am, the beginning of the song says…

I talked to a cat the other day and he was like, "Man, I really want to come to Christ, but I have to clean my life up first. Get my sins together..." I told him I used to think that way too. I thought I had to change myself before I could come to Christ, but CHRIST CHANGED ME.

I can totally relate to this, and maybe you can too. Maybe you are living in sin and don't understand why God would love you and send his only Son to die for YOU. Or maybe you are clinging onto things of this world that seem too great to let go of and surrender to Christ. No matter where you are and what you are going through, God meets you where you are. He loves you, and sometimes that means he loves you enough to change you. I am so stoked about this series we are starting tomorrow and can't wait to see how the Lord continues to sharpen us! COME AS YOU ARE...COME AND SEE!

Praying for you all~

www.theporchdallas.com