Your Own Personal Jesus

We are, by nature, needy creatures. We all want to be loved, have purpose, be accepted, and find fulfillment. Ultimately, we are made to need God, and through Christ we are to approach Him and find our perfect love, purpose, acceptance and fulfillment. I find that too often we try to create our own source for these things. Too many people are caught in unhealthy relationship patterns because they just want someone to love and accept them. It breaks my heart to think of those in the sex industry because they believe that’s what they’re best at and so find their purpose in a dehumanizing occupation. So many adolescents just want to belong and be accepted so they partake in underage drinking and drugs, among other things.

We all desperately want those longings to be filled, but strangely we are so reluctant to go to the only One who can really satisfy. For some reason this perfect love is terrifying, and we’d rather try to take care of things on our own. Part of the problem (maybe the main part of the problem?), I believe, is that God has been so misrepresented that some have no good reason to believe He will help in any way. Most people are under the impression that they’ve done too many “bad things” for God to accept them. They don’t realize that it’s because of those “bad things” that He even sent a way out for us…because He LOVES us. They’ve been rejected and abandoned by so many that imagining a God who loves them perfectly seems entirely implausible. 

Instead, we go through life creating our own form of Jesus, trying to find meaning, love, hope, and purpose in whatever we can reach. We think we have to “get it all together” before we can come to the Father. All the while, Jesus waits with arms stretched open, calling for anyone who will come find rest in His perfect love.