zephaniah. charles spurgeon

i was seeking advice from a friend a few months ago, having a hard time understanding that God loves me, that He died for me. with how selfish and unloving i can be, with all of my unfaithfulness towards Him. i believed that He was putting me through trials because of what a bad job i was doing at being a Christian, at being His daughter. this isn't the gospel, but i was believing lies and so she told me this: "My husband loves our one-year old daughter. sometimes our daughter can be stubborn and not want to go to sleep. she doesn't know when she needs to eat. she is rebellious and throws temper tantrums, but Paul(the husband) will always unconditionally love her." she explains further, "every night before she goes to sleep, Paul goes in to say goodnight. He makes up little songs for her every night to put her to sleep and he gets so excited to sing them for her. he gets to remind her how much daddy loves her"

the daughter doesn't understand the songs. she's only one. she doesn't understand that when her daddy tells her it's time for bed, it's because he loves her and wants her to stay healthy. just as we don't realize that our heavenly Father puts us through trials and times that seem unfair, to the point where we want to throw a one-year old tantrum, because He DEEPLY loves us. He wants to make us into what He intended us to be, 'mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (ephesians 4:13) sometimes that means we have to do what Daddy tells us to do, simply because He is our Sovereign Father and He indeed always knows what is the very best for us.

in the midst of struggles we can remember this because of what Christ did on the cross"The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing." zephaniah 3:17

How heart-cheering to the believer is the delight which God has in his saints! We cannot see any reason in ourselves why the Lord should take pleasure in us; we cannot take delight in ourselves, for we often have to groan, being burdened; conscious of our sinfulness, and deploring our unfaithfulness; and we fear that God’s people cannot take much delight in us, for they must perceive so much of our imperfections and our follies, that they may rather lament our infirmities than admire our graces. But we love to dwell upon this transcendent truth, this glorious mystery: that as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so does the Lord rejoice over us.”

charles spurgeon