God Rejoicing!

So today I had a meeting at the church with Jim Donohue, to talk to him about what's going on with me and how my family is liking the Bridge Course. He recommended a sermon from this year's Leadership Conference by Aaron Osborne titled: God Rejoices Over Us. This message highlights Zephaniah 3. In the message he says how the Lord sings and rejoices over us. At church this past Sunday I felt the Lord saying to me how that day he was singing over me. I was moved to tears by this realization, and so convicted by how I was viewing the Lord. I feel like he only loves me because he promised to, not that he desires to. Aaron said this in his message which made me cry:

"In light of who I was, in light of who I sometimes still seem to be, how can I be loved like this? Or to wade into the theological deep end of the pool, how can God be pleased with a sinning Christian? We know people, but we ourselves feel it is just easier to believe I'm loved because it's His duty, because He made a promise and He keeps them, then to rejoice to be loved like we're truly loved. Friends, we're loved like this because of a substitute. Don't lose sight of our substitute.... You and I are loved by our Father like Jesus is loved by our Father. His love for us is not different, it is the same! How is that so? Because we're in Him, clothed in Him, we stand with Him. Jesus is why and Jesus is how God sings over us loudly. "

Aaron also said this quote from John Piper:

"We must banish from our minds forever. any thought that God admits us begrudgingly into His kingdom. As though Christ found a loophole in the law, did some fancy plea bargaining, and squeaked us by the judge. No way! God himself, the judge, put Christ forward as our substitutionary sacrifice and when we trust Him, God welcomes us with bells on, He puts a ring on our finger, kills the fattened calf, and throws a party; Shouts a shout that shakes the end of creation, and He himself leads the festival dance. This is how He loves!"

This message was so applicable to me and the walk I am currently in. It even touched on how a woman should feel heading into a marriage, which is how I one day want to feel going into a marriage if that's what God has for me. He related it to how God loves us and this is what he said about young brides who have been married:

"There's something right about our hearts, about the desire to be delighted in....don't most young ladies? Leading up to your wedding, wasn't there a delight in your heart to know that you occupied the thoughts, the affections, the feelings of your groom to be? That you were carried on his heart?....That's the kind of relationship we were created for."


I encourage every person to hear this message, given at Grace Community Church.