Thankful That God Loves Me!

Happy Thanksgiving!

My prayer is that your heart will overflow with gratitude as you experience the depth of God's love for you.

On that dark Friday afternoon when Jesus hung in agony on the cross, the two Marys and John focused their attention not primarily on Christ's suffering, but on the suffering Christ himself. They were completely enthralled by the one who "loved us and gave himself up for us" (Ephesians 5:2).

Brennan Manning points out that for these loved ones of the Lord, Christ on the cross was a burning and divine reality, and their lives would have been "utterly incomprehensible except in terms of it" (Signature of Jesus, 68). Manning continues: "Mary Magdalene would have been buried in history as another tragic heroine if it were not for her immense, passionate, and uncompromising love for the person of Jesus." It's likely that John would have lived out his life as a disillusioned disciple at best.

Yet, these loved ones of Jesus stood with him as he was brutalized and painfully murdered.

Jesus said of Mary Magdalene: "Her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved much" (Luke 7:47).

Jesus said, "Know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). What is the basic truth that sets free the Marys, John, and all followers of Christ who walk, skip and jump in freedom today? It is the truth Christ shows us about a God who loves us beyond our worthiness or unworthiness, beyond boundary, limit, or breaking point.

The personal experience of God's love is the power that frees us to become illuminated, transformed and transfigured as were Mary Magdalene and John the Apostle. The experience of knowing God's love is the dynamic life-giving force that has created all the extravagant lovers in Christian history.

Four hundred years ago, a 34 year-old widow named Marjory Kemp wrote this prophetic word: "More pleasing to me than all your prayers, sacrifices, and good words is that you would believe that I love you."

My heart is filled with gratitude from knowing the love of God for me! The Christ who brought God's love to us in human terms says: "Take up your cross daily. Forgive those who hate you or hurt you, cheat you or slander you. Reject the world-wisdom that welds your identity to money, power, pleasure and the psychological insights of the social sciences. Find your true self by surrendering your heart to the "reckless" love of God for you!

I invite you join me this Thanksgiving in a commitment to live with St. Paul in this glorious, life-giving freedom: "I have been crucified with Christ, and I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me" (Galatians 2:20).

This is the good life of knowing God's beautiful, constant love for us and for all.