He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.
Titus 3:5
My common theme is that it is good and necessary to glorify God through obedience, to worship him with our very lives, to live constantly in his presence. But it's important to remember one thing: all that is impossible until we can ask for and receive his unconditional love and mercy.
Sometimes it's not as easy as one might think to simply receive unconditional love. I've found myself struggling with just that the last few days. I often try to tweak and optimize my life into righteousness—worthiness—usually more to frustration than success. Often the result of my own efforts is failure, which only serves to drive me deeper into self-condemnation and away from God himself. Paradoxically, it is only when I stop tying to earn God's grace and instead just ask for and receive it with no strings attached am I capable of responding with a lifestyle of worship.
Obedience is not the price of love. Love and thankfulness is the fuel for obedience. We love God because he first loved us and died for us while we were yet sinners. Everything else follows pretty naturally from that.
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