loving me while I could've cared less...

If you're an Oswald Chambers reader, then today you read the same devotion I did. If you're not an Oswald Chambers ready, then I can only encourage you to begin. Today, Mr. Chambers brought a truth to my mind from a passage I've uttered on many occasions.

"...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Rom. 5:8

Ahh, the Roman Road. This passage has become a brick in the way to Jesus, but today it became a reminder (or a light-bulb for a thought that has never occurred to me for that matter). Christ died for me when I could've cared less for him. When I was a sinner, God loved me. I know we quote scripture like John 3:16, but it's almost as if these passages from God's Word have become secret messages for those who don't know Him yet, and we forget they are still applicable to our growth in Christ. When speaking on sanctification, Oswald Chambers says this, "It is a holiness based on agonizing repentance, a sense of inexpressible shame and degradation, and also on the amazing realization that the love of God demonstrated itself to me while I cared nothing for Him."

Sanctification is the process a believer goes through in striving to be more like Christ. Part of this process is realizing that God loved me when I wasn't returning the favor. This thought simply jumped out at me and I couldn't let it go. It's a truth that I needed to write about in order for me to remember it's value (and that's a sad reality to admit...I have to do something like this in order to remember something like that).

Maybe it was the way he wrote it and the eloquence of his pen, but this truth spoke to me today. And if you read Oswald today, maybe something different jumped out to you, but to me it was the truth of God's love...and I think it will leave a mark!