For You Are Greatly Loved

I've heard it said that it's not what you know, it's who you know that makes the difference, and at times this can prove to be true.  Perhaps you've gotten a moment with just the right individual to pitch an idea, to express interest in an open job position, or to meet someone you've always wanted to just because you happened to have the right connection.  While you might have otherwise been easily overlooked or ignored, another vouching on your behalf changes the game.

In the book of Daniel, God's people are in exile because of their disobedience and failure to follow the one true God.  During his time in Babylon, the prophet Daniel finds favor in the eyes of the kings and is given positions of influence.  (This is the same Daniel you may recall was protected by God when thrown into the lion's den for obeying the Lord above the king's edict.)   In Daniel 9, he prays for himself and his people, acknowledging their disobedience and failure while imploring the Lord to bring glory to His name by having mercy upon Israel and delivering them from exile in a land far from the Promised Land they had once enjoyed in God's blessing.  In response to his prayer, God sends Daniel a messenger and vision.  The messenger, Gabriel, explains that "at the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved...." (Daniel 9: 23). 
As I read these verses, I was stopped by this response, that Daniel's prayer was heard and answered because he was greatly loved.  How beautiful this must have been to Daniel, that God would incline His ear, hear prayers, and respond because of His great love for His follower.  How often my prayers are heard and God moves in my life, yet I fail to recognize His acts of mercy that speak the same message to me: Cassie, see this work I am doing in your life.  I hear you, answer you, and bless you, for you are greatly loved.  It's not on my own credentials or achievements, however, that I am heard or so dearly loved, but completely on the basis of another...

As my pastor, Mark Vroegop, so succinctly explained in a recent message, "we have a God who likes us, but He is not like us."  Our God is perfectly holy, righteous, and glorious.  We are not.  Because of our sinfulness, we cannot be in the presence of our God.  Fear not, for in such a great love that He has for us, He has made a way.  Through His life, death, and resurrection, Christ became the bridge to span the chasm between God's holiness and our sin.  I'm a visual person, so let me give you a graphic that someone once drew in my childhood to illustrate this concept that really stuck with me.  If in faith you have given your life to Christ and made Him your Lord and Savior repenting of sin and relying on Him alone for your righteousness, you are united to Him.  That means that when God looks at me, he doesn't see my imperfections and failings, but instead He sees the all-sufficient and perfect work of His Son.  Doesn't that make you want to shout for joy?  It certainly does me!  Because of this, we can approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:16), and I know that Jesus is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us (Romans 8:34).  Jesus makes a way for me to approach my Creator, and He continues to work on my behalf at God's side. 

In this case, the saying is absolutely true: It's not what I know (or have done), but who I know that makes all the difference!  I celebrate that we can be drawn into relationship and fullness of joy with God because of my Savior Jesus Christ, for you and I are greatly loved.