I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:22-23 NIV

I didn’t sleep well the other night and woke up yesterday morning VERY tired, with a cold hovering near my body.  In short, I felt blah about everything.  Thankfully, this doesn’t happen too often. At one point I did nap for 30 minutes and walked for another 30 minutes talking and listening to God. “Jesus, I’m tired, I have a cold and I’m preoccupied about Mom.  I open my hands and release all this yuk to you. I want to receive whatever you have for me today.”

By the time I got back to the house I was thanking the Lord for ‘the blahs’, for they led me to ponder what makes for a good day. I admit that being productive in my self-assigned tasks results in a mild euphoria with which I measure my days.

Providentially preceding these blahs, my friend Ali had forwarded on a Tim Keller sermon where he explains the impact that Jesus’ words SHOULD make on our lives as believers.  He posed the question, “How would your life change if you actually believed that the Father loved you as much as he loves his son, Jesus?”  Keller pointed out that most of us live our lives trying to prove that we are worthy of love. We start from a belief, obviously FALSE, that the Father isn’t really pleased with us.

This morning, I ran across a clause in Galatians 2:14 where Paul writes to the Galatian church about his meeting with believers in Jerusalem:  But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all……..(ESV)

When we don’t believe that God the Father loves us as much as he loves Jesus, then we CANNOT live our lives aligned with the truth of the Gospel. Period. Full stop!

Let that teaching soak in. Knowing the Gospel precedes any doing, any imitating Jesus’ actions with others.

Jeremiah’s words to Israel attest to this same truth: Long ago the LORD said to Israel: “I have loved you, my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love, I have drawn you to myself. Jeremiah 31:3 NLT

Let’s go back to John 17 and look at what Jesus declares in verse 26 (NIV) I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.

I believe that if I were to live each day from a posture of being infinitely loved by the greatest love that there is in the universe, then 1) people would notice how different I am. 2) I would consider EVERY day a good day, just due to being loved by Absolute, Perfect Love himself.

That means, whether we sit on a park bench, enjoying and quietly contemplating what we see, whether we energetically get through our ‘to-do’ list, or whether we are feeble in mind and body and CANNOT even do anything for ourselves, as my mother-in-law is these days, it’s STILL a good day as a beloved child of the Father and brother/sister of Jesus.