“When I was Your foe, still Your love fought for me
You have been so, so good to me” – Cory Asbury, Reckless Love

I heard the song Reckless for the first time during the GFC Beautiful Ministry’s Found Conference for women.  Even as I peered through camera 2 and the sound pretty muffled because of the control booth headphones I was wearing, I could tell this song was special.  It is declarative of God’s love and how He will do “whatever it takes” to find me in my “lostness.”

The lyric above is nestled into one of the verses.  It isn’t song over and over like the chorus. (Which is truly an awesome piece of music – it can be sung quietly or like an anthem proclaiming the truth.) This little lyric has been working on me lately.

When I accepted Christ, I became one of God’s adopted children.  I recognize and reciprocate the love that God has for me back then and today.  I know God has a purpose for me.  I know that his plans for me a for my good…even when I don’t know why certain things happen.  I love that I have a heavenly Father that loved me enough that Jesus would come and be my Savior to my sin and life’s messiness.

So, why is that lyric working me over?  I am God’s foe.  I am human.  I am not without sin.  The Bible says that I am made in God’s image and that He loves me.  Yet,  I have a human nature that is marred by sin and God cannot love sin.  Accepting Christ does not change that.  I still battle against sin in my words, thoughts and actions.  The enemy has a job to do – to rob, kill and destroy.  The Bible says in Revelations 12, “For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth–the one who accuses them before our God day and night.”  The struggle with sin is real but then you also have the devil reminding you of all the times you fail.

Look at the heroes of the Bible.  They were not void of their human nature.  Outside of Jesus, each one has challenges in these same areas.  Even Paul, who wrote a majority of the New Testament struggled.  He wrote in Romans 7:22-25, “ I love God’s law with all my heart.  But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.  Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.”

The reason the lyric is resonating with me is that even in a relationship with Christ, God is still fighting for those areas of struggle.  The power of the cross that brings salvation is the same power that brings freedom through the resurrection of Christ.  Where as God loves me, He cannot love my sin.  He made a way for me to live without it.  In surrendering all the areas of my life to God, He can truly bring freedom.  I continue to pursue relationship and freedom.

Maybe that is you today.  You are living without a relationship with God or you have one and you are in a battle for a certain area of victory.  

The answer is Jesus Christ.  No longer a foe…now a Savior and Conqueror.