Romans 8:35;37-39

"Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?... No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow - not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below - indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."

These verses might have had the single greatest impact on my life. They're tattooed on my right hand, oriented so I can read them every time I extend my hand to greet someone. Why? So, I'm reminded of this truth for my life no matter what the person I'm greeting might commentate about me. 

If you boiled this passage down it carries the simple truth that we are LOVED PERIOD.

LOVED.

Loved with no ifs, ands or buts.

Loved without condition or clauses or statements.

JUST LOVED.  Just accepted, just chosen.

This is a love that says I love you no matter how many times you get it right, say the right words, put your best foot forward, but I also love you no matter how many times you just screwed things up, say the wrong thing, at the wrong time, in the wrong way, and no matter how many times the only thing you can put forward is this mess called our life. 

This love that Jesus offers is a love of grace and acceptance no matter what. It values honesty over hoakie displays of fake selves, it longs for conversations over correct vocabulary, it values coming back no matter how many times we turn away. 

This kind of unconditional, never-ending love, changes lives, changed the history of the world, and it has the power to change us. 

This type of love is a “I choose you no matter what” type of love. It’s not circumstantial, it’s committed. 

The love put on display by Jesus, the love Jesus invites us to reshape our lives around is a love that says… 

I choose you when you get it right, 

I choose you when you get it wrong

I choose you when you make me happy 

I choose you when you make me sad

I choose you when we’re on the same page 

I choose you when miscommunication seems to be our only communication  

I choose you when you provide everything I hoped for

I choose you when you only crave for yourself 

I choose you when you get my humor and laugh

I choose when you look at me like I’m crazy

I choose you when you’re clean, calm and collected

I choose you when you’re messy, A MESS, and in a million pieces

I choose you when you make sense to me

I choose you when you’re senseless, mindless, heartless, clueless I choose you today and I choose you no matter what tomorrow may bring

This unconditional love says you can know from this day forward you are not alone, and you cannot scare me away, you cannot push me away, there’s nothing that’s too much, too scary, too emotional, or too hurtful. 

I’m here no matter what may come; there is no need to hide, to feel like you must perform, or to ever hold back. 

This is the love I've discovered in Jesus, this is the love that's changed my life, this is the love we sing about on Sunday mornings, this is the love that's built movements and fought injustice and traveled the globe and stood with the forgotten and remembered the least, and it's the love that in the midst of 7.4 Billion people says I matter, I have a place, I have a purpose, that I'm not dispensable or forgettable, or only valued when I'm perfect. And so do you.

This is the love that when we're told "God so loved the world" he loved the world with.

So to everyone in your past that's said God needs your "Sunday best" or given you the impression that God needs you to behave a certain way, they're wrong. God needs NOTHING from us, other then to accept this outrageous love of another kind that he's offering to us.

And the crazy thing is, once I stopped trying to earn God's love, I've truly been changed by his love.

And the love I have to give is slowly starting to look a lot more like the love he's given me.

LOVED. is more then a tattoo or stickers it's a movement that's restoring humanity and rewriting history.