Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. Ephesians 2:1–6 (MSG)
God loved you before you were ever born. Long before you made your entrance into this world, you were surrounded by His love, and He has always wanted a relationship with you. He will never give up on you.
I love how the Message Bible paraphrases Ephesians 2:1–6. In it, Paul speaks of God’s incredible love for us and His desire to bring us to Him, even if at times we’re moving in the exact opposite direction. He says, “It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live…. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose His temper and do away with the whole lot of us.”
But God didn’t give up on us. “Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, He embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ.” All we need to do is accept what God freely wants to give us through Christ.
If you’ve made decisions you’re not proud of and you’re wondering if God even wants a relationship with you, you need to know that He does! God wants a relationship with you more than anything so He can pour out his favour on you! Then He “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” (Ephesians 2:7–10, MSG).