Loved Through The Mud

Out of town, so I’m re-posting an old post:

I love this quote from Helmut Thielicke:  “Jesus did not identify the person with his sin, but rather saw in this sin something alien, something that really did not belong to him, something that merely chained and mastered him and from which he could free him and bring him back to his real self. Jesus was able to love men because he loved them right through the layer of mud.”

It’s so easy for us to identify people with their sin, and to identify ourselves with our sin. But we are not our sin. Yeah, we have gotten a bit dirty, but that doesn’t change who we are or reduce our value. Yeah, we make stupid choices – the truth is, we’re boneheads. But we’re God’s boneheads. He loves us despite the dirt, despite our boneheadedness.

Its not that He loves us because we’re worthy. It’s that His love makes us worthy.

Whew.