God rejoices!

The Lord your God is with you. He is a hero who saves you. He happily rejoices over you, renews you with his love, and celebrates over you with shouts of joy. Zephaniah 3:17

Do you also ask yourself if it can really be that God rejoices over you? That someone – and God at that – is excited about you and celebrates? Not only when you have done something great, even in the moments when you are not in a good mood, yes, even when you have failed and although he knows what thoughts are buzzing around in your head! This is almost unimaginable for me and yet he is meaning you and me!

God is always pleased when I come to him, when I turn to him! Read the verse out loud again! Isn’t it amazing?

But what happens when I fail or even do something wrong? The God in the Bible is sometimes angry. Isn’t he sometimes angry with me, as well?

In the first book of the Bible, Adam and Eve do the one thing they are not supposed to do. What a failure! They ate the fruit they were not supposed to eat. And because of that, they realize they are naked and are ashamed. What does God do? He meets them in the garden and shows them the logical consequences of what they have done – not a punishment for it!

And what does he do before he sends them out of paradise? He clothes them. Out of love, he clothes them to cover their guilt. In spite of their failure, their role that he has assigned to them remains the same; they don’t get a dismissal; they are still assigned as priest and priestess to manage and take care of the world. God cares for them; he continues to love them nevertheless!

Since then, Jesus has stood up for us, has borne our sins and taken them away. We stand purified before God. He no longer sees our sins when we have brought them to Him. They are forgiven, they no longer exist in His eyes, and we still belong to Him!

It is important that we can forgive ourselves too, we don’t have to be “more righteous” than God, that’s not possible. On the contrary, if we hold on to our guilt, we tell him that what he has done for us is not enough! But the grace through Jesus’ death on the cross is and remains greater than anything we have ever done wrong.

His grace is more than enough for you, too. God is delighted in you through Jesus, rejoicing over you as if you had never made a mistake. When you understand this, you can come to God with a trusting heart. Then you can rejoice in his unconditional and genuine joy!

Your job is to accept his love and grace as a gift, with empty hands. Accept it and rejoice in his joy!