GodReflection: Does God Care Specifically About Me?
But God demonstrated his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, [He] died for us (Romans 5:8).
Confession Time:
I have never approached another human being with the proposal, “I see you are weighed down with a huge burden called life. If you will give it all to me I will carry it for you. You need not worry yourself any longer.”
Flash Back:
I was already several years into cross-cultural church plants prior to enrollment into a World Religions course.
The big eye opener was to see that every religion known to humankind—with one exception—are all “to do” religions that require sacrifices and offerings IN EXCHANGE FOR hopeful salvation.
The Exception:
In Holy Scripture God came to me free of charge. He did not bring a list to fulfill for salvation.
He came to communicate from His heart, “I see you are weighed down with a huge burden called life. If you will give it all to me I will carry it for you. You need not worry yourself any longer.”
This is a Holy-Reality thought. It should stop me dead in my tracks about every fifth step. Its truth is so grand that it verges on the too good to be true.
The idea that God comes to me goes against lifetime bombardments of “to does to be save.”
“Hey God, I’m over here. Just a minute and I will read from my Bible, make a promise to do better, attend a church activity, or send some money to a good cause.”
I cringe when I find myself chasing God to get His attention.
In stark contrast Scripture shows me a God who ran to receive a lost son (Luke 15:20).
He is a God whose highest priority is to seek and to save any individual—including me—who is lost (Luke 19:10).
The same Jesus who declared “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9), demonstrates a Holy God who sought out and dined with abused women, dishonest business people, lepers, and those with every imaginable sin.
He came to them with outstretched hands just as He came to me and to you.
He is the God who pursues, who hunts, who seeks, who invites, who looks. He is the one who comes. He is the Holy Aggressor.
I worship a God who did the unthinkable.
From His Holy vantage point in the Throne room—after His creation lived in chronic unfaithfulness throughout thousands of years—He determined the time had come to act.
He would come to earth, seek out, and walk with any human being who would join their heart to His. He came to me.
He would come to give Himself—through Jesus His Son—who:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind (John 1:1-4) who became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
Ok, I’ll readily admit this next thought is beyond my pay scale.
He not only came to me but, he took every sin, misstep, and mistake I will ever make, and died in my place so that I would not have to pass through eternal death.
He came to me so that I can be raised like Jesus to live eternally in the presence of the Holy.
As I seek God’s reassurance that He care specifically about me, I now add a third brick—God came to me—and brick four—He gave me Himself.
So, here is my third and fourth of twelve steps to help me become less of an “earthoholic” and more addicted to the Holy.
Will you believe that you are in God’s direct line of sight? He comes to you because He gave Himself for you.
Stay tuned.
Dr. Gary J. Sorrells
A GodReflection: He Came to Me and Gave Himself for Me.
God Reflection 
Brother, Gary, this is so rich and true! I have determined in my heart and mind that this is the crux, it is the center of, the main focal point of, the axle around which all else in Christ’s Way revolves, that He did more for us than we can possibly fully grasp, that the essence of my walk is to permit my heart to be so engulfed with this love (containing mercy, compassion, longsuffering, His being slow to anger, forgiveness, ad infinitum) that I purposely give my soul no other choice but to aggressively follow Him. What a wonderful way you had of putting this central theme, receive and respond in love unbounded. Thanks a million, Grace and Peace,Lynn
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Whenever I recall Paul’s writings I try to remember his personal journey. He’s a zealous murderer doing what he thinks God wants when Jesus come to him. He takes his sight — and restores it. He takes his hatred toward “sinning lawbreakers” and replaces it with an appreciation of hyperabundant grace. He teams him with Barnabas all the while growing more “powerful”. He was called to teach in Antioch, he was called to teach the Gentile world. He is commissioned and he in turn commissions Timothy, according to the elders prophecy, and he commissions Titus (and a slew of others). He went about healing, exorcising, proclaiming — as did Peter. God channelled His Spirit and power through those disciples so that anyone who looked on them would see the Father. Do churches today value the empowering, gifting, calling and commissioning of every member seen in the Book of Acts and Paul’s writings? Does God empower today?
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