As I sat down to pray this morning, I felt like the Lord asked me this question, "If you know that I love you, how then should you live?"
I felt like it was a question for myself, as well as to have me look at how I treat others, for God's love is equally true for all, every man, woman and child. This really is a key heart issue in each of our lives for this is the wound that the enemy tries to inflict on us all, that we are not loved, and not lovable certainly by God (because of our sin).
So, "if I know that God loves me how should I live my life?"
First question would be - do I know that God loves me? Do I truly believe deep down in my heart, and in the hidden parts of my mind that God loves me? Do I believe this like I believe my parents love me? Is there an assurance of His love regardless of whether I do whats right or not? Do I believe that He likes me, and desires to be in relationship with me? Do I struggle with knowing His love in real and practical ways? Is my idea of God's love for me more knowledge of what He has said in scripture, than it is experiential? In other words, do I think He loves me in sort of a general way, because I am included in His overall creation, and get grouped in with everyone and everything else, or do I believe that He actually knows me intimately, understands me specifically, sees everything about me, and loves me exactly as I am, uniquely and specifically me??
For most of us, I feel that the enemy has spent most of his time trying to convince us that God doesn't really love, and can't possibly love us. He points out all our failures, all of our imperfections, all our sins, has us compare ourselves to others constantly, and has us convinced that some part of us, or many parts of us are broken, flawed, ugly or unlovable. He strikes deep into our hearts and minds and tries to get us to the point of not loving ourselves, because if he can get us to that point, than it is easy to convince us that God doesn't love us, since we don't even love ourselves.
God on the other hand, is not like us, and doesn't think or act like us. We tend to look at the imperfections, comparing ourselves against others, and He looks at our uniqueness, seeing that we are purposely and perfectly crafted for His purpose and plans. He sees us as we will become, for He sees our abilities, our gifts, our talents, and everything in us. He loves us perfectly.
If you show a baker a pile of flour, eggs, milk, yeast, sugar, and other ingredients, he has the ability to see what the finished product will look like, knowing how the perfect mix of theses ingredients will create exactly what He wants to create. He might desire cake, bread, cookies, whatever he can imagine, and knows how to put these ingredients together in a perfect combination to achieve his desire. The baker does not begrudge the baking, the mixing of the process, for he knows that is part of the art, part of the experience and part of what he loves to do.
In the same way, I think that when God looks at us He sees us for what we will become, and does not get worried if we are still in a raw state, or unfinished, for He knows who we are, what we have in us, and what His purpose is in our lives. God does not get angry with us in the process, for He knows that is part of the creating and fulfilling our purpose. He sees each of us in our uniqueness, and is perfectly satisfied and loves us just the way we are, for we are the result of His will, part of His creation.
God's perspective of us is from eternity. He is outside of time, and He loves us in that place and from that place. In grade-school we made time-lines and these are based on our understanding that time is linear. It is a line that starts somewhere and ends somewhere. I believe that outside of that line is eternity which is encompassed in God. I stray onto this topic, because it is important to know that God's love for us is eternal. He loves us from where He is, and in that place He sees everything in time, and He still chooses to love us! He still believes in our value to Him, still chooses us and calls our name! He knows our every thought, every word, every day (Ps 139: 1-4, 13-16) and still loves us. His love for us is never changing, for He does not change His mind (Num 23:19). There is literally no change in Him (Ps 55:19). So, if God never changes His mind, never changes in His affection, how could His love for us change? If He has already seen everything we are going to do, every word we are going to speak, and has chosen to love us, then that is part of His unchanging character! He will never love us less!
Jesus came to demonstrate the Father's heart and mind to us, and to destroy the works of the enemy. It seems to me that this is the same thing. If the main work of the enemy is to convince us that God doesn't love us, then coming to earth and proving that the Father does love us destroys the enemies work, and shows us the Father's heart and mind to us. When we look at Jesus' example, he always ministered to the people individually, when He could. He touched them, spoke to them, loved them regardless of their sin, sickness, acceptability or beauty. He saw the uniqueness of each and every person He met and He loved them all as the Father loved them. He did not allow the judgments of others to influence His perspective. I can think of story after story where He demonstrated this - the woman at the well, Zacchaeus, blind Bartimaeus, the lepers, the Canaanite women, the widow of Nain, the man with the shriveled hand, the man born blind, etc. In each and every one of these stories, Jesus met the person exactly where they were at, touched their lives and revealed to them the Father's love. He rescued them from sin and unbelief, from wrong judgment of the Father, and showed them what the Father really felt about them.
Jesus, through the working of the Holy Spirit desires to do that in each of our lives, showing us the Father's heart for us. He desires for us to understand and fully comprehend the Father's love for us. He wants us to know Him, to know His love and to be firmly founded on that Love. God is Love! (1 John 4:8) In fact, John says that perfect love casts out fear, for that is what is behind our belief that we are unlovable, a fear that this is true. If God is love, how can we, as His son or daughter be unloved, or unlovable? Jesus, in His personal touch and expression of love for each of the people I listed earlier, cast out fear from their lives. They were no longer afraid that God didn't love them, for they knew He did because of Jesus' love, compassion and mercy.
In each of those Bible stories, the people that were touched by Jesus were changed. The woman at the well became an evangelist, Zacchaeus become known for his generosity, Bartimaeus became Jesus' follower singing His praises to any that would listen, and on and on! God's love, when understood and embraced, becomes a mighty force of light an enlightenment. When we know that God loves us, we lose our fear of man, and our desire is to respond in love to God. In the same way that a woman who is newly engaged shows off her ring, the sign of another's overwhelming love for her, we are called to bear witness that our hearts are moved by God's love. This is not some command or work we are to do, but should be that natural result of the revelation of love. A newly engaged woman desires the same for all her friends, for there is something wonderful in knowing that she is loved. The same is true for men, if we would admit it! :-)
My prayer is that we would each have a revelation of God's overwhelming, unrelenting, unending, unchanging and intimate love! His love is truly amazing! He loves us from eternity into time, and desires that we know, understand and experience His Love.
If we are convinced that He loves us, how than should we live our lives?
More on this to come because clearly I am just starting....
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