As I Am

Meditations for Ragamuffins

July 31, 2023

As I Am

“For the Lord your God is living among you. He is a mighty savior. He will take delight in you with gladness. With his love, he will calm all your fears. He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”

Zephaniah 3:17 

God loves us unconditionally, just as we are, not as we should be. Because no one is as they should be.” (All is Grace by Brennan Manning) I never get tired of pondering the depth of Manning’s observation about the incomprehensible love of God, our Abba. In one of his devotional books, Manning mentioned a passage in Exodus as part of his foundation for understanding God’s grace: “The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations” (Exodus 34:6-7a). Yes, the love of God is incomprehensible to our finite human minds.

This passage in Exodus, and the above passage from Zephaniah tell us that God’s love is beyond worthiness and unworthiness, and beyond fidelity and infidelity. God loves us without caution, regret, boundary, limit, or a breaking point. (Reflections for Ragamuffins by Brennan Manning) Incomprehensible is the only word that fits when I realize that God fully loved and accepted me the day, I offered tenderness and compassion to a dying member of my church, and He fully loved and accepted me yesterday when I took His name in vain after nicking my thumb while slicing an apple.

Picture in your mind the image of Jesus hanging on the cross. Before we had one iota of awareness that there even is a Creator God of the universe, God our Abba became human, suffered, and died on that cross in the hope, really a gamble, that one day we would open our hearts to receive his unfailing love.

My Takeaway: If I could have one more conversation with Brennan Manning, I would ask him if he would consider adding one little word to the end of his statement. I think I would end his statement this way: “Because no one is as they should be, yet.” I am convinced that the more I live into the reality that Abba loves me just as I am, the more I will be transformed into the likeness of Christ, and thus, the more I become the person my Abba created me to be.

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2023 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.