Already Loved

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.
Jonah 3:1

Earlier this year, a shy young man in his late teens asked to meet with me. He is preparing to leave home for his freshman year at college, and it took courage to ask if we could meet each week before he leaves.

During our time together, I have discerned an unstated undercurrent beneath many of our conversations: Good relationships don’t come easily or naturally for everyone.

That got me thinking. What makes a person lovable? What makes you or me worthy of being loved? What must we do or change before we become lovable?

We have been reading the Book of Jonah recently. Most of us know the story of Jonah being swallowed by the great fish. Even Jesus referred to it.

But what stands out to me now is how gracious God was in giving Jonah a second chance he had done nothing to earn or deserve.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah “a second time.”

God did not wait for Jonah to become a different person before calling him again. He pursued him, rescued him, and gave him another opportunity to say yes.

And Jonah had not merely made an innocent mistake.

He ran from God, resisted His direction, and endangered the lives of others. Even after he obeyed, resentment and self-righteousness were still lurking inside him.

There is a lot of Jonah in all of us.

We hide. We run. We compare ourselves with others. We protect the parts of ourselves we are afraid to reveal. Beneath it all is the fear that if God, or anyone else, knew the whole truth about us, they might turn away.

Many of us believe we must fix ourselves before we can approach God or return to Him. That is one of religion’s bitter fruits: the belief that God will not accept us until we have made ourselves “good enough.”

But Jonah was already fully known.

And he was still pursued.

That is the gospel.

Pastor Tim Keller described the deepest longing of the human heart as being fully known and truly loved. Being known without being loved is one of our greatest fears.

Much of the sin and brokenness around us grows from that insecurity.

We hide our failures. We defend ourselves. We blame others. We struggle to ask for forgiveness because admitting we were wrong feels like presenting evidence that we are unworthy of love.

My young friend and I have been discovering that we long to be fully known and loved, not only by God, but by others too.

Relationships can be frightening because we risk allowing someone to know us, knowing they may not love what they discover. Rejection hurts. Unconditional love can be difficult to find among imperfect people.

The good news is that we are not loved because we have finally proved ourselves worthy. We are loved because God is love, and in Jesus He came looking for us.

Secure in that love, we are free to admit when we are wrong, ask for forgiveness, and love others without requiring them to audition for it.

Run the play.

You are loved by God just the way you are, not because you finally got everything right.

You are free to live rightly because you are already loved.

Finding Our Place in the Story

What might change if you stopped trying to prove you are lovable and received the love God has already given you in Jesus?