Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. Ephesians 2:4 (MSG)
Before you were ever born, God loved you. Before He carefully formed you in your mother’s womb, you were surrounded by His love.
He has always wanted a relationship with you. Even if you are living the kind of lifestyle that has taken you far from Him, He yearns for you to love Him (James 4:5). He will never give up on you.
He didn’t give up on any of us. Ephesians 2:4 says, “Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us.” Because Jesus went to the cross and took the penalty and curse for our sin, God accepts us with open arms. He did this all for a chance to have a personal relationship with each one of us.
We didn’t earn this kind of love. Ephesians 2:1–6 says, “He did all this on his own, with no help from us!” All we need to do is accept what God freely wants to give. And when we do:
“Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing” (Ephesians 2:7–10, MSG).