Dear Mark,

I love you!

Think about that above all else . . . really meditate on what I’m telling you.   

Let this sink in . . . deep into your deepest being . . . 

I love you!

Three words . . .  one for each of Me!

“I” –“I” love you.  

“I” . . . as in “I, your Father” . . . as in “I, the Creator of the universe who also created you” . . . as in “I, the Spirit who now lives inside of you.”  

“I” the One who dreamed about you from before there was time or anything at all.  

“I” — as in “I AM” — The One whose Name my children are afraid to say for some childish reason — ” I “ love you.  

I COULD go on and on about WHO precisely I AM, but I won’t because you’ll get to take forever getting to know me, and you won’t be disappointed for a bit of it, not even throughout all eternity!  

So let’s talk about what I AM to you. 

“LOVE” — I “LOVE” you!

Do you even know what that Word means, Mark?  

Kinda . . . sorta . . . not really . . . no?   It’s OK.  I know. 

“Love” — The Word has haunted you all your life, hasn’t it?

Remember that time in your freshman English class in college and you got the word “love” for a descriptive writing exercise?  You winced just now didn’t you . . . just like you did almost fifty years ago, remember?  

You had no idea what to write back then . . . because you had no idea what that word meant even though you should have known, huh?  You had by then in your nearly 20 years young already experienced more “love” than you could ever count.  

But you winced back then, cringed actually, because you’d never yet “fallen in love” even though you’d already experienced some so-called “love-making” with some so-called “lovers” who you weren’t actually “in love with” . . . and you mistakenly thought that only “falling in love” was what the word “love” meant, didn’t you . . . and you just knew, therefore, that you had nothing to write about . . . remember?  

This hurts, doesn’t it?  

I can see that it does.  

Now as an old man of sixty five, you are sad to remember how dumb you were back then at eighteen . . . 

and still are to this day, aren’t you, if we’re gonna be completely honest about things, huh?  

Don’t worry ’bout it, Mark.  

I still LOVE you, and I always will no matter what . . . because I AM LOVE . . . and “Love” isn’t a feeling or an emotion, it’s an Action . . . or maybe better said, it’s a Person . . . actually, it’s ME, a PERSON IN ACTION.  

Remember how I once said “Greater LOVE has no One than this . . . that he lay down his life for a friend?”  

YOU ARE MY FRIEND . . . and once I did lay it all down FOR YOU . . . didn’t I? 

Finally, Mark . . . 

“YOU” — I love “YOU!”

Yes I love everyone . . . but I also love YOU.

And “I love YOU as you are and not as you should be . . .

because YOU are never gonna be as you SHOULD be “ . . . 

NOT in this life!

Remember how grateful and relieved and finally freed from your self-condemnation you felt the first time you heard someone say this . . .

that THIS is what I would tell you if you’d just stop and listen to Me speak my GOOD NEWS into your ragamuffin’s heart?   

This Truth isn’t make-believe . . .

and the author you once heard say it didn’t originate it either.  

I did.  

I wrote out this Truth of MY Love for YOU in My own Blood.  

This IS the Gospel of Jesus Christ!  

Don’t you believe ME?  

Of course you do!   

I WAS THERE the first time that you did . . .

when YOU first trusted Me with faith like a child . . .

still covered as you were in your adult guilt and shame . . . 

which I then completely washed away forever!  

None of that has changed, you know . . .

but yet your trust waivers sometimes, doesn’t it . . .

when you look at yourself . . .

and take your eyes off Me.

Mark, I KNOW every rotten thing that you’ve ever done, every foul word you’ve ever spoken, every evil, yes downright EVIL thing you’ve ever thought or felt.  

I was there then too . . . each and every time . . . and not just back before you knew Me, but even after you became one of My Beloved.  

The ironic thing is that the things you are most ashamed of aren’t even the things that have hurt me . . . and also hurt others . . . the most.  

Much of your self-condemnation and lingering feelings of guilt you’ve reserved for the things that make YOU look bad, not for the things that have hurt others. 

Often, your seeming contrition is really just another aspect of the damnable pride that you so desperately need to lose.  

And the things you regard as little, sometimes even too little to confess to Me or, even, to notice at all . . . 

like those unkind things you’ve said to the ones who love you most . . .

or the things you didn’t do that you could have easily done to help people who I love as much as I love you . . .

THESE are the sins that I’ve forgiven without your slightest notice . . . or thanks.  

But let it pass, Mark.  Let it pass.  

I have forgiven YOU all your sins, ALL OF THEM . . .

even these, even also the ones you haven’t yet committed . . .

but someday will.

Hear this.  I DO NOT condemn YOU . . .

because YOU ARE MINE, and nothing and no one can ever change that, not even YOU . . .

and, by the way, I AM MAKING YOU NEW.  

Even though YOU can’t hardly yet see it, I CAN!  

When I look at you, I see NO sin, because YOU have no sin!  

YOU can’t even imagine that, can YOU?  

BUT I can because I DID IT!  

You ARE beautiful.  

In fact, YOU are looking more and more . . . LIKE ME.  

One day you’ll see THAT too . . . you’ll see that on the Day you see Me face to Face!

So hold on, Mark.  I’m coming back soon!

Until then, LOVE everyone.  

Love them to the utmost . . . like . . .

I LOVE YOU!

-Jesus . . . your so-called “possibly imaginary Friend” 

PS: That “possibly imaginary Friend” line cracks me up every time! -JC