Lord, Do You Still Love Me?
By Clarence Andrews
A 55-year-old man laid silently in bed one morning going over all the things he had done wrong in his life. He began to tell the Lord about the kind of person he had been most of his life. At the age of fourteen he became a liar and a thief, at seventeen, a fornicator, at age twenty, an adulterer and whoremonger, and at age 29, a murderer. He considered himself a murderer because he encouraged his ex-wife to have an abortion. But it became apparent to this man that he had been going around in circles most of his life. Even though this man had given his life to Christ at an early age, he still struggled with obedience. No matter how he tried he would always end up doing wrong. He was a chain smoker, but cared little for strong drink, although, he dranked his share of it when he was younger. He still had a slight temper, but he kept it under control, and he did not attend church like he use to. On this particular morning this man thought about all his failures in his Christian walk, and as he drove to work that morning he asked the Lord, “Lord, do you still love me, even after all my failures, constant disobedience, and many times not even giving you the time of day? How many of you feel like this man? Having a constant up and down relationship with the Lord and wondering do the Lord still loves you. Many times I have found myself asking the same question, does the Lord still love me, despite my many falls.
I, just like others have seen my share of trials and tribulation and have asked the same questions we all ask when going through. It’s not uncommon to wonder if the Lord still loves us, especially, if we are in a spiritual rut, or going through some kind of test or trial. When the test or trial come we start trying to figure out what we did wrong to bring this punishment upon us, and as we get further into the test we began thinking back trying to remember what bad seed we planted, if any, that could have brought us this bad harvest. As we pray and pray and still not seeing any change, we come to the conclusion that we must have done something to really anger God, or he just may not love us anymore. Do you really think that it’s possible for God to stop loving us? And how can a God who was willing to send his only son to die for mankind simply stop loving us because we have sinned? It’s not possible for God to stop loving you. Because scripture says, “For God so loved the world,” and you and I are the world, “that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16) God has already shown his love for us through his son’s death on the cross. The word of God has given us this revelation concerning our sinful condition in which God has loved us since the beginning of time, and it was while we were still sinners that God decided to send his son to die for us. This is how the scripture reads, “but God commends *his* love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us. (Romans 5:8)
There are times for some of us when we are going to backslide, and when we do; we know we are on the wrong road. Even when we try to pray it’s only a few short lines of prayer we’re able to muster up, it’s mostly like; Lord help me, give me strength Lord, lift me up please. After much praying on our part we begin to feel a conviction in our heart, that everything we had been doing was wrong in the sight of God, and we wait and listen for God to speak to our hearts, but nothing comes. We conclude that God has gotten tired of our foolishness; especially if we have backslide more than once in our lives. Yes, God does get tired of our sinfulness, but he hates the sin not the person. Romans 8: 38-39 says, “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Some people get a little confused when it comes to certain scriptures, they think it means that they can keep on sinning and still be close to God, but this is wrong. Sin can and will separate us from God, We die spiritually because of sin and it puts a distance between us and God. I want to make sure I’m clear on this, sin cuts us off from God, but sin does not kill the love God has for us. I’m sure that many of you have kids, and there have been times our kids have done things that we have told them not to do. When we find out what they have done we become angry, and we dislike the things they have done, but all in all, we still love them despite their disobedience. Well, this is how God is with us; he hates the sin, but loves the sinner. We don’t have to worry about the love of God, because God has never loved us in the same manner as people love us; his love surpasses our love and our understanding of love.