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Others progress a step further.  They know God loves them and has accepted them, but are quite sure that He loves them because they have trusted Him and because they do their very best to be as good as possible. ‘Because love’ is risky --given an imperfect action and the love disappears.  But even worse is the high standard of performance for the wrong reason.  God loves because.  People caught in this trap usually come from backgrounds where love is given on this basis of performance, and witheld if there is disapproval.

I am increasingly convinced that a major cause of the despondency, the ineffectual living, the lack of freedom, the feeling of worthlessness so common in today’s world is a failure to understand what God has done in redeeming us--and how and why He has done it....

God means for His children to live with an enormous sense of well-being.  He made it possible for us to be free from all our old hang-ups and the opinions that bind us.  He constantly assures those who trust Him of His steadfast love.  You shall be mine, says the lord of hosts , in the day when I make up my jewels.  He calls us His children, and we enter into the wonder of the Fatherhood of God.  He promises his continued presence with us.  --I will never leave you nor forsake you."  He tells us not to be anxious because He knows all our needs.  His resources are available to us as we trust Him.  Those who come and eat at his table are satisfied....

If God accepts us, are we not insulting him to fail to accept ourselves?  --Being justified we have peace with God," Paul writes in Romans 5:1.  Why not peace with ourselves as well?

I am not talking about an egotistic self-love; I am talking about the kind of self-acceptance that affirms our personal worth and frees us from the prison of self-absorption.  When we need constant reassurance about our personhood, we have set self in the center.  The Psalmist reveals the secret to mental, spiritual and physical health so beautifully: --I have set the Lord (not self) always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.  Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope." (Psalm 16:8-9) Notice that the heart, the soul and the body--the whole person--is affected by this perspective.

Our problem with reflecting on self is that our thoughts either lead us to self-praise and self-satisfaction or plunge us into discouragement and despair.  Whichever it may be, inevitably any view of God is shut out and we lose the wonder of being justified.  When we get hold of what it cost God to justify us, and the love that led Him to do it, our self view takes on biblical perspective.  God has redeemed us; we can lift up our heads and shout praises.  God’s love is an in-spite-of kind of love--the kind of love that is safe, that lets us dump our load honestly before him, assured of his constancy....

We make our own prisons.  God’s invitation is to come out.  Knowing some restless, seeking woman, ill at ease with herself and with her world, I have often thought, She needs to sit on the Lord’s lap and let Him love her and quiet her a bit.  I have sat there often myself and come away refreshed in my own person.  It’s the Lord’s promise, you know.  --As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you;" (Isaiah 66:13)  --Gladys Hunt --Ms. Means Myself--Being a Woman In An Uneasy World"

God has enabled me to be a good wife, mother, seamstress, writer and Bible teacher, etc.  If I were to say to others, --oh, I don't know--I'm not very good at........." I would be lying and degrading my Lord. He made an individual path for my life so that I could be taught to do things well to accomplish His will--and then He enables me to do what He arranged for me to learn. IN the Lord I can do these things well. In my own strength/flesh I would flounder.

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