God Loves you!
Have you ever been in a relationship that you were unsure of? Most of us have grown up that way or you have had an adult relationship that was filled with insecurity. There is nothing more unsettling than not knowing where you stand in a relationship. What I have discovered is that most of us experience conditional love. What I mean is that we are loved but that love is based on performance; if I do right then I am loved. Or it is based on personal dysfunction, better said addictions. I will be loved when I cover for or assist the addict to keep up their abuse.
If you grew up in a home like this, it has shaped your view of God. I have heard people say God can’t love me because I am sin filled, I am broken and can’t break through, or most damning, I am not loveable because of … fill in the blank. They are robbed of a life worth living based on insecurity and false beliefs.
Then there are the false beliefs that if God really loved me then I would not struggle with hardships or I would never be filled with doubt and discouragement. Or we can assume that God is somehow unloving because of systems of abuse, genocide, terrorism, and many other things. If God really loved us He would put an end to all of this. What is amazing is that the very presence of evil reveals the love of God in contrast.
Satan’s favorite tool is to make us think the God doesn’t really love us. Satan wants you to think that you have to earn God’s love, get your act together, and be religious or some other self improvement “mojo”. But God does love us and his love is unconditional. He demonstrated that love “while we were still sinners Christ died” (Romans 5:8). He has loved us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 33:3) and His love is based on His character not ours. God has created you to have a love relationship with Him and that relationship will produce Christ-like character in you as He becomes more and more at home in your heart. God made the first move in this love relationship and He keeps moving transforming us through His great love.
What do I need to do? Accept His love and then intentionally live in that love.
Why am I saying all of this? Because we need the love of God poured out in us, His security covering us, so that we as believers can really love each other and a watching world. If the church loved that way then … everything changes!
What do you think?
If you grew up in a home like this, it has shaped your view of God. I have heard people say God can’t love me because I am sin filled, I am broken and can’t break through, or most damning, I am not loveable because of … fill in the blank. They are robbed of a life worth living based on insecurity and false beliefs.
Then there are the false beliefs that if God really loved me then I would not struggle with hardships or I would never be filled with doubt and discouragement. Or we can assume that God is somehow unloving because of systems of abuse, genocide, terrorism, and many other things. If God really loved us He would put an end to all of this. What is amazing is that the very presence of evil reveals the love of God in contrast.
Satan’s favorite tool is to make us think the God doesn’t really love us. Satan wants you to think that you have to earn God’s love, get your act together, and be religious or some other self improvement “mojo”. But God does love us and his love is unconditional. He demonstrated that love “while we were still sinners Christ died” (Romans 5:8). He has loved us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 33:3) and His love is based on His character not ours. God has created you to have a love relationship with Him and that relationship will produce Christ-like character in you as He becomes more and more at home in your heart. God made the first move in this love relationship and He keeps moving transforming us through His great love.
What do I need to do? Accept His love and then intentionally live in that love.
Why am I saying all of this? Because we need the love of God poured out in us, His security covering us, so that we as believers can really love each other and a watching world. If the church loved that way then … everything changes!
What do you think?
Labels: Love
posted by Scott Weatherford at
11:03 AM
2 Comments:
My wife and I have had the opportunity to go and stay all over the place in our short lives, and the same thing happens every time we walk in the door of our home... we both inhale deeply and exhale the words "Glad to be home!" We could have been on the peak of the tallest mountain in the US. But the air is just different somehow cleaner in our house. I never thought I would say this but, when we walk into the middle school, we both say..."Glad to be home!"
It is amazing to know that we are attending a church that is family based. My family has searched Tally for a place where we could come and just... BE! It is so refreshing to know that we don't have to know all the answers and we have to dress, act, or tithe in a certain way to be accepted.
Most importantly, we have been adopted by God. He is made this life abundant in ways that we have never expected. From nearly loosing everything in Hurricane Ivan, to eating doughnuts cut in half from Publix every Sunday, we are truly blessed!
By
Josh Bedwell, At
February 26, 2008 2:47 PM
Ok bro, you can have a whole doughnut this week!
By
Scott Weatherford, At
February 26, 2008 3:16 PM
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