Oh Sherrie...

Steve Perry…What a vocal range and voice!

As I heard this old timeless hit playing the other day I began singing along and felt warm, thinking of the beautiful gift of genuine love and reconciliation from God between a man and a woman…

If you’re of the opinion such a love as this isn’t from God, I ask you to try and fathom how some people have such a love like this…a love which doesn’t die, even after enduring hardships and sometimes heartbreak.  We all know stories like this and we all can relate to the power of true love holding on through storms and the immense beauty of commitment, forgiveness and reconciliation.  I challenge you to give me a convincing, logical, clinical argument; for I can’t without factoring in the source of such true love which is God Himself, for God is Love.

You should've been gone, knowing how I made you feel. And I should've been gone, after all your words of steel. Oh, I must've been a dreamer, and I must've been someone else. And we should've been over…Oh, Sherrie, our love, Holds on, holds on. Oh, Sherrie, our love, Holds on, holds on! 

Steve Perry ‘Oh Sherrie’.

Have you read the book of the Bible called Hosea?

It talks about the love of The Lord for His people in the language of a faithful husband and unfaithful wife…it talks about the incredible gift of God alluring back His people to Him from the wilderness after they have gone astray after other lovers (other false religions) and of reconciliation where The Lord is restored as the husband after repentance. The heart of God is shown in the book so beautifully and we can see Jesus on the cross suffering for our sin of idolatry (having anything else before God compared here to adultery) in the words of Hosea 11:8-9 ‘How can I give you up…my heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender.’

God’s own heart recoiling within – Him taking upon our sins – a true compassionate, undeserved, sacrificial gift, reconciling us to Himself for the reality is sin eternally separates us from our Holy, pure creator…and must be dealt with.

Unfaithfulness…to my shame I know what that’s all about…

In 2005 The Lord so graciously convicted me of my sin.  I understood that I couldn’t be near Him now or when I died without it being dealt with and that I was truly lost and utterly helpless.  I knew no amount of good deeds would ever make up for my filth.  It was like all my unfaithful, selfish life choices were literally pressing down upon me and I would be dead and lost forever.

In my mind, I knew I was standing at the edge of a cliff with heaven and hell before me and I knew heaven was out of my reach…I couldn’t obtain it no matter what I did from here on…I was at the ultimate cross-road of life.

So I called out to The Lord with every ounce of strength I could muster and pleaded with Him for mercy through Jesus Christ – I knew Jesus upon the cross was the only way for me to be reconciled and restored to the one true God I could not bear imagining being eternally separated from Him, the only source of goodness and love.  I knew I totally did not deserve His mercy…I was like the unfaithful wife a man would never consider forgiving and reconciling with ever…the one who would be divorced and forgotten about, rejected forever from a decent, honourable, loyal guy...and God was that decent, honourable, loyal guy!

But God in all His glory, majesty and unfathomable love accepted me back through the only way it was possible…Jesus Christ! Just like we read in Hosea.

As I now walk through life, forgiven, cleansed and restored I stay close to Jesus as I don’t want to ever go back to whom I was…if I stuff up I need to confess it and I want to learn from it to avoid repeating it.  It grieves me now to think of hurting such an awesome, perfect, sinless saviour...

Oh Saviour, Your love, holds on…holds on

Oh Saviour, Your love, holds on, holds on.

Oh, Saviour, thank you for your steadfast, undeserved love! Keep holding on to me, Melanie.