Beginning relationships can be fraught. Remember when your friend, neighbor, or spouse was a new acquaintance? Only your best behavior kept your “warts” from torpedoing a blooming relationship. Time would determine how accepting a person might be for the real you. Years later, you may still feel you don’t measure up, that you must hide your flaws.

It is not this way with Jesus. “Before I formed you in

the womb, I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5). Jesus knows all our “warts”: our failings, flaws, and faults; yet, He loves us. He will never “unlove” us. His love depends only upon Him. His forgiveness is unlimited. His death and resurrection opened to us the doors of heaven. We are both fully known and fully loved — what a miracle!