The power of God's love
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I grew up in a christian home in Manchester. It was also a broken home. This led to me growing up with a twisted view of God. I heard about the cross. I heard stories from the Bible. For me, it was all just words. It was dead religion.
During my childhood we moved around a lot. At one point we almost become homeless. At the age of 10 we moved into a council house on a rough housing estate. When we arrived we found broken tv’s and glass and used heroine syringes in the garden.
As a teenager I was lost, insecure and easily led. I ended up leaving school with hardly any qualifications. I ended up finding my belonging in the gang on my estate. We would rob cars, joy ride the cars and burn the cars later on the same day. We would fight other local gangs and we would do street and home robberies. We clashed with the police and often had to hide from the police helicopters in the night sky above us.
As I grew older we began planning more complex robberies and also getting into more serious drug dealing that the older guys were doing. Inside I was angry. I was hurting. I was depressed and alone. I was lost. I didn’t really want to be living the life I was in. I had no hope and I had no confidence.
If there was one word to describe myself it was powerless. I had no ability to change and I was in a pit. By the age of 18 I would sleep a lot of the day and spend the night time out on the streets of Manchester.
One day in September in the year 2000, my mum came into my room. It was a Monday morning and I had been out late the night before. My mum never came into my room. My relationship with my family had completely broken down. I knew that for her to come into my room something serious was going on. I thought she was going to throw me out of the house.
I was lying on my bed and I watched her as she walked up to the edge of my bed. She opened her mouth and spoke these words:
“Judah, God will always love you and I will always love you”.
As she spoke those words the most explosive and life changing thing happened. As she spoke those words I could actually FEEL the love of God. I could feel his love all around me as I lay on my bed.
It was more than just a feeling. It was an experience. As I felt God’s love all around me and in me, I could feel his power. I could feel peace and I became aware of something I had not had before - hope.
After my mum had spoken those words she walked back out of the room.
I knew that as I lay there on the bed that I had a big choice to make. Would I trust God with my life. I just knew in that moment that this was an invitation. I knew that God was offering me a new life. He was offering me a relationship with him.
I knew that this was the biggest decision of my life. Would I surrender my life to this God? A God who actually LOVED me.
I knew that if I chose God, I would need to give him 100%. All of my life. After thinking it through I made my choice. In that moment I chose God. God who loved me.
As I look back I can now see that really it was God who chose me. As I gave him my life I felt all the sin and rubbish and pain leave my body. I felt washed clean. I felt like a baby. I felt peace. All my anger had gone. The depression was gone. I felt hope and I felt a sense of real power.
In his book to the Ephesians, Paul describes what happens when we experience the love of God:
“May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Ephesians 3:19
Through an experience with God’s love I was filled with power. Through an experience with God’s love I repented from living life my own way and I found a new life.
I did not deserve God’s love. I was in a pit. A sinner. Rebellious. A lier and thief. I was a broken angry person and yet God stepped into my mess and into my pit and he showed me his great love. In his love I found power and strength to build a new life.
I can’t take any credit for my life now. None. Without God’s love I would be in a pit. Lost and alone. God gave me what I did not deserve or earn. His love. This is the grace of God.
In that moment I was experiencing the grace of God. I now understood what grace is all about. God’s grace is when he empowers us to live the life that he wants us to live.
That moment defined the rest of my life. In that moment as I encountered and experienced God’s love, I discovered my purpose. I know that I am called to spend the rest of my life helping people experience the love of God.
On my own and in my own strength I have no love to offer. I can’t love people with my love. My love is weak, it fails and it falls short. God’s love is not like the love that the world offers. His love has captured my heart and all I want to do, is to love people with his love.
Right now there are people trapped in fear, darkness and depression. There are people walking our streets who are full of anger. Rich people, poor people, young people and old people who all have the same problems. Addiction. Loneliness. Bitterness. Anger. There are people all around you who are alone and afraid.
The truth is that many of these people have some experience of religion. They have tried to find help and hope and yet they are still bound and trapped.
There is only one answer for every problem that people face. God’s love.
We need to strip back our complex projects and clever strategies and go back to the simple joy of loving people. Loving people with the love of God.
