THIRST QUENCHED

All of our lives we have panted for a drink from a cool spring, that would quench the burning thirst within us for love and acceptance. We can find that cool spring in Jesus, and we do find that cool drink in His precious love. His love does fill and quench the burning ache of love and acceptance so vitally needed within us.
He is not only a Savior. He is a Companion always at your side. A shepherd to care for you, and a guide to help you along the way. He is a teacher to help you grow and gain wisdom about yourself. He is your best friend, and you can open your heart to Him in complete honesty about your fears and doubts. You do not have to put on the mask of always being strong, always smiling and carefree, while inside your heart may be silently crying from the hurts of life. Most of all you can tell Him openly about yourself. Those areas that you are not to proud of, where you want to improve but find wanting to, and doing so are two different things. Those areas that perhaps falsely cause you to feel weak or of lessor value than others. Perhaps has even kept you from fully accepting His great gifts of forgiveness, love and acceptance. You know about it and understand it, but perhaps like so many, you don't really feel it.
You read of God's forgivness, but you wonder, " Am I really?" and hardest of all, even knowing He has forgiven you, you haven't forgiven yourself. As His word says He not only forgives you, " He remembers them not." He loves you so much He chooses not to remember them, and if God chooses this, You most certainly need to do the same. Remember also, God created you and knows your whole life and all that you have done or will do. There are no surprises for Him. He knows every sin you will ever commit, and He still chose for you to come to know Jesus Christ as your Savior. You can never say "I have done this and I can no longer be forgiven, I am no longer accepted or loved. He already knew about it and He still sent you to His Son! Once confessed, Please let go of the guilt, forgive yourself as He already has, then move on in the freedom this loving grace gives you.
You read of His love, but so often look at all the "thou shalt not's, or you feel His love is conditional and you will never quite measure up. If you had to be perfect, and you had to score one hundred percent in all you did, well then what reason for Him to send His Son to die for us in the first place? No, Praise God, His love is unconditional, ever-flowing and ever-abundant.How much more can you ever be loved, that even if you had been the only person alive, God so wants your fellowship and wants you to come home to Him, that Jesus still would have marched up to the cross and died, with your name written with love in his heart.
You read of acceptance, but you don't feel it. Perhaps a few whispered words spoken by others have made you feel unacceptable, or you have allowed the false opinion of this worlds view about your looks, riches or intelligence to be the standard of accepting yourself. This is one of Satan's greatest tools, low self esteem. You allow these untruths to take root and therefore find it hard to accept yourself or like yourself and find it hard to feel accepted by God. Psalm 139: 14, states, " I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful." You are not only wonderfully made in the image of God Himself, but because of Jesus, accepted and so precious to God, even as Jesus is, and you are destined by His continued good work in you to be just like Jesus.
Not only accept yourself and like yourself for who you are, but know without a doubt you are very much accepted by your heavenly Father. You are wonderfully made, for He shaped you gently and carefully with own hands, then wrapped you within His love. You shall never thirst again. Allow the burning ache within you to be quenched by the everlasting drink of cool water, as the love of Jesus fills you, gently touches your heart and unites it with His forever.... Forgiven.... Loved.... Accepted.