If God wanted us before we were even born

He chose us in Christ before the beginning of time… Ephesians 1:4

If God wanted us before we were even born, and if God loved us even before we’d done a single thing right or wrong, what does this say about God’s love? It certainly suggests that it’s not based on us getting things right or wrong. It’s not based on us being better (or worse).

Perhaps this means that it’s based on grace. What would it look like to let that in, all the way in?

Spend some time reflecting on these words today as part of the process of letting in God’s love and care:

It can be difficult for those of us living in a culture that prizes earning power above nearly everything else to understand that in the economy of grace, the currency of deserved and undeserved is irrelevant. It is absolutely true that you can’t earn God’s love. But it’s not because you are a helpless wretch whose sin makes it impossible for God to even look at you or because you have done something so grievously wrong that your soul has been permanently stained, as if by spiritual Sharpie. The truth is, you can’t earn God’s love because you already have it. You can’t be any more loved than you are because God’s love has already been freely and abundantly given. You can’t do anything to achieve a greater portion of God’s love because God’s love for you is already unconditional and it is already infinite.

- Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu, Wholehearted Faith