I have always enjoyed the idea of being totally and unconditionally loved. Thoroughly loved and adored is something that I really think I have longed. I think that this desire is not peculiar to me alone and I wonder if behind little girls dreams of a prince and a love story to go with it lies this one , enormous, unrealistic desire and hope. And behind it stands a question.
Am I desirable?
Will any one really care for me deeply and wholeheartedly?
Am I loved?
am I accepted?
The answer to these questions depends on the people in our lives and our circumstances. Beginning from our parents and going on into friendships and then on, to marriage ( although not everyone gets married).
So the answer for each of us will be very, very different.
Love is a beautiful thing.
God is the source; the begining; the origon of love. God is in himself love. He is love. In other words he is in his very nature- love. He is consistantly, continuously , always loving.
Who is he loving? Well, he is loving us.
God has lavished and does lavish his love on us every day and all of the time. He has given us his word, the bible which is a fresh and available daily source of love to us. When we read God's word to us he is communicating his loving heart to us. His word is active and alive. His word is life changing and when we read it, we come face to face with God himself.
And he is love!
The very first commandment tells us to love God with all of ourselves. All our of our mind, all of our soul and all of the strength we have. We are to LOVE him.
The thing is we can not love God and we dont really want to. But because he is the source of love and he is love itself, he loved us first and because he says "I Love You!!" we are then able to love him in return. His love motivates us to love him in return.
You might be wondering well, how in the world do we know that the God of the universe loves us. Surely we see love.
The very clear answer to this kind of question is this. God loves us and they sure way we can see this love is to look at the cross. Jesus died on the cross and he took our disobedience onto him- our sin- and in doing so he died in our place. Jesus loved us so very much. His love motivated him to go to the cross and his action there demonstrates his commitment and his deep love towards men, women and children. No matter who we are, Jesus died for us. No matter what we have done. Jesus died for us.
He loved us.
I wish I could show you ... truly show you how deeply and truly Jesus loved you by going to the cross. If you read the accounts in the gospels you will see that his going to the cross was a very painful experience for him. Not just the actual death because you can imagine the horror of the torture and the beating and finally the long and slow actual tormented dying. But more then that..... deeper than that.... Jesus separation from HIS father because he had taken onto himself the sin of mankind . God can not commune with those who have sin and so he cut himself off from his only son... from himself...
The pain and understanding of this is expressed in Jesus praying to God and begging him so take the cup of suffering from him - but not my will , not what I desire but rather what you do my father.
and so we see Jesus the man and Jesus our God go.......
In doing so he lavishes love on each one of us who do not deserve his love and kindness.
he gives to us willingly, freely and compassionately that which we can never grab or earn or demand .
He loved us.
I wish I could show you ... truly show you how deeply and truly Jesus loved you by going to the cross. If you read the accounts in the gospels you will see that his going to the cross was a very painful experience for him. Not just the actual death because you can imagine the horror of the torture and the beating and finally the long and slow actual tormented dying. But more then that..... deeper than that.... Jesus separation from HIS father because he had taken onto himself the sin of mankind . God can not commune with those who have sin and so he cut himself off from his only son... from himself...
The pain and understanding of this is expressed in Jesus praying to God and begging him so take the cup of suffering from him - but not my will , not what I desire but rather what you do my father.
and so we see Jesus the man and Jesus our God go.......
In doing so he lavishes love on each one of us who do not deserve his love and kindness.
he gives to us willingly, freely and compassionately that which we can never grab or earn or demand .
When we grasp the gospel- the true and life changing story of the cross- we experience as individuals, Gods real and never ending love.
His real and never ending love towards us actually began in the garden of Eden when sin first began. God promised the first of many promises. he would fix the mess that sin had brought. he would heal and sort out the broken relathionship between man and God and between man and fellow man.
God would do it.
and he did.....
When we understand God's plan and purpose in Jesus. His love and forgiveness towards us
then we can begin to understand real love.
God's love makes sense of love.
His real and never ending love towards us actually began in the garden of Eden when sin first began. God promised the first of many promises. he would fix the mess that sin had brought. he would heal and sort out the broken relathionship between man and God and between man and fellow man.
God would do it.
and he did.....
When we understand God's plan and purpose in Jesus. His love and forgiveness towards us
then we can begin to understand real love.
God's love makes sense of love.
This love then makes sense of his command of us to love him.
Because God loved us first we are set free to love him back.
Every time you feel or say " I love you Jesus" we could actually say
" I love you too"
because God actually says" I love you", first, we can respond and say "I love you too"
This truth I pray would grip my heart as I really come to grasp God's acting love for me.
I pray that my love for God will be a priority in my life. I ask God to please give me love towards him. I long to have Him and thoughts of him in my mind; I long to more and more be drawn to spend time with him; I long to demonstrate my love for God by loving others and I long to enjoy God and be satisfied in him. ( these ideas are based on Beth Moore - Breaking free)
These are big prayers. These are radically ideas. These are God ideas.
Being loved by God is radically and being set free to love God back is profound. God's love motivates love- towards him and towards others.
I have found radically love. I would like to recommend it to you.
Jesus is able and willing to love you- just as you are - warts and all. He invites you into a loving relathionship with him. He has done the work to make this possible and he is calling you to take hold of his offer of continual, life changing ; adoring love.
Will you come.
Jesus is able and willing to love you- just as you are - warts and all. He invites you into a loving relathionship with him. He has done the work to make this possible and he is calling you to take hold of his offer of continual, life changing ; adoring love.
Will you come.
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