the beloved of the LORD dwell in

Please watch and listen to this new song by Jason Gray:



Listening to it on repeat and there rises in my heart the familiar feeling, the one I had when I first turned my soul over into the hands of eternity. Similar to a lesson I've taught twice now on Luke 8. Every human being will be forced to confront the reality of Jesus Christ and respond in a way that will reflect what they come away with. Many will turn away in disgust and anger and reject Him outright. Others will shrug and go away, an end result no different from the ones who left in disgust and anger. Some will accept Him intellectually. Or out of fear of damnation. Both will see heaven's gates, but miss out on the great joy of the best response.

That best response is seeing Jesus for the first time and looking into your heart and noticing an emptiness that had always been there and upon seeing Jesus realizing that what that emptiness really had been was a God-shaped hole, a Christ-shaped hole, in reality a hole from where love leaked out of your heart. And here was love personified, filling that leak and telling you the greatest of news, that no matter what the world thought of you, He thought of you in only one way, the only way that mattered. That He loved you. That you were beloved. That you were priceless to Him. And you run into His light and you finally admit to yourself that no matter how much you found yourself unlovable, love personified did not.

Sometimes, sometimes I need to be reminded of that.