Does God really love me? If he does love me does His love really make a difference one way or another in my life.
All of us come to our relationship with God with our own baggage. I wonder what it is that you’re not seeing about God? What vision of yourself in the past is obscuring your view of His love for you today?
So who is God and what is He really like? Is your view of God clear to you or a little distorted?
If you found it distorted, you will find it difficult to fully experience His intimate love for you. Why?
We often put the wrong face on God. In other words we can view Him in the wrong way. Even if it’s our most respected spiritual mentor’s face it is the wrong face. But many of us have put a face on God based on a bad memory or painful experience from our past. We then transfer that over to our God, and see Him like that, and relate to Him accordingly.
Our view of God will determine how we see and approach other people, ourselves, God and the world around us. Father has shown us who He is and what His love is like for us in many ways through many different means.
In Ex. 34: 5-9, God comes to Moses to show him Who He is and what He is really like. He connects His glory to His own character.
(I credit Graham Cooke for these 3 points and the rest of the material on the DNA of God)
1.God's love for you is rooted in His Character.
Compassionate – Empathy. God knows everything you are going trough and He is with you and for you. He has compassion for you. It’s used 111 times in scripture. When God repeats Himself that many times, He really wants us to get it. The sufferings we are going through He is going through it with us. He will never leave us. He stands with us in our pain. Compassion is love and sorrow mixed in our hearts for another.
Compassion is an action that takes the weight off another person. The Father had compassion on the prodigal son. Hugged him and kissed him, filled with compassion. The Samaritan was full of compassion but the Levite who was supposed to be the man of God, had none.
Gracious – Grace means to release favor to another person when they least deserve it. To act kindly, be friendly, be courteous. To impart unmerited blessing. God loves to be gracious toward you. God will never change the way He feels about you, thinks about you and cares about you. He loves being God to you.
Slow to anger – He has a long fuse. He is easily able to patiently bear with us. It takes a lot to make Him mad. His understanding is inscrutable.
Full of loving kindness/mercy – Mercy treats the offender better than they deserve. Father is abundant with mercy. Rich, overflowing, generous, super abundant, God loves being merciful to you. God loves being kind to people who don’t deserve it. Do you know this God?
Faithful - He will never ever leave us, no matter what!
Forgiving – When Jesus died for our sins on the cross all of our sins were future. You are completely forgiven,
God’s character is the content of His glory and the significance of His name. This is who I am, says the Lord. This is who I want to be for you, to you and through you, all the days of your life and I will never change. The whole earth should be filled with the glory of God. Can you imagine what the earth and the people on it would be like if this were happening?
To understand Father's love better, we need a paradigm shift to grasp it. First of all we need to understand that we use the word love for everything in the U.S. We love food, cars, candy, our spouse and God. This kind of love is called "if and because" love. I love you if I can get something out of it or because of how you make me feel or what you can do for me. God is not like this. He loves us with AGAPE love. No strings attached! No agenda loving!
1JOHN 4:16 God is love…God loves us with AGAPE. It is a deliberate choice of God to love me. Not for what I would become, but for who I was right then and there.
Graham Cooke says, “God does not get disillusioned with us. He never had any illusions with us in the first place." He knew exactly what you were like. He has always known everything about you. Like the way you think, feel, your preferences etc...
2. God loves you no matter how good or bad you think you are doing or not doing.
This again is AGAPE. It is a deliberate choice of will to love someone, because of who you are not because of who they are. This love comes from Father because of who He is, so it doesn't change.
When you experience this love from God personally you will want to love others in the same way. We learn to love people out of the nature of God not out of our own nature. We allow Father to love others through us with His AGAPE love.
a. He loves you so radically that it covers a multitude of sins. God has it covered. In Proverbs it says that it is a man's glory to overlook a transgression. So it is with Father God. He loves to comfort you by the Holy Spirit. He knows everything about you and loves you 100%. God loves loving you! He enjoys enjoying you. He likes liking you.
b. God looks at you as the new person you are in Christ. God’s love for you is so deep that it absorbs failure. God's love for you turns you failures into His glory story. He loves who you are, you are His masterpiece. God is not obsessed with sin. He looks at you as the new person you are in Christ. Your sins have been dealt with once for all. Jesus is not going to die again.
c. When God looks at you, He does not see what is wrong, He sees what is missing out of your experience in Jesus. He’s already dealt with your sin. He’s not bothered about sin anymore in you. You are in Jesus, Jesus is in you. This means that when Father looks at you, He is happy. In his teaching on the "Love of God", Graham Cook said these comforting words, “When God looks at you, He sees what is missing in your experience of Christ in you and He intends to be that for you”.
There is an example of this in the bible with the lady caught in adultery. He loves and forgives her. He becomes for her what is missing in her life regarding Christ in her. This was pre-cross. For God not to love and forgive you, He would have to spit upon Christ. Do you think He would do that?
You are outrageously loved. God is aware of all of your weaknesses, hurts, habits and hang ups. He does not look at you like there is something wrong with you.
Jesus said this often to His disciples, "Just as My Father has loved Me, so have I loved you.” Abide, in My love. It is crucial that you experience a revelation of how much you are loved by our Uncreated Creator.
3. God's love overcomes our weaknesses and failures.
God loves us whether we are a success or a complete failure. Many of us are filled with deep guilt and shame for the things we have done! God is not going to love you any differently. He loves you 100% always, no matter what! His love never discriminates. His is a love that is always true no matter what is occurring.
As humans, our love does discriminate. When I think about all the trials and struggles with temptation and sin , hurts, the loss of loved ones to death, the ministry blow-ups and more, I could easily feel overwhelmed, unloved and unprotected by God.
Yet, I have never felt as close to God as I do today, so loved by God, so protected by God, so at peace in my soul, so deeply in love with my bride and three children. This is how real, intimate, life-changing and miraculous it is to experience the revelation of just how much you are loved by God.
So who is God for You? The one reason why we can absolutely guarantee that God is going to love us, all the days of our lives, 100%, is because love comes from God and through God. In other words, love comes through God to the Christ in you.
God is the source of AGAPE. In other His love draws us toward Him. The best way to love God is to let God love you. When God’s love melts your heart you have to love Him back. It’s an automatic desire.
Rom. 8:28 Everything works out for Good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose. God allows in His wisdom what He could easily prevent by His power.
God’s AGAPE love provides security, identity and belonging. Everything that comes against you is actually allowed by God to establish you in security, identity and belonging. God provides for you Himself who is your refuge.
Proverbs reads, the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run to Him and are safe. We need to learn to hide in God.
We are deeply loved, completely forgiven, fully pleasing, totally accepted, absolutely complete in Christ. His love will give you a confidence in Christ that will amaze you to no end. So let me encourage you today my friends with these final words.
His love is in control of your circumstances. This means He will always do the right thing in your life. He is solely motivated by His love for you. He is everywhere. I AM is everywhere that you are! He is unchangeable. That means He is not moody. He is the one constant you can always depend on. He is your God, King, Lord and friend!
(Credit given and adapted From Grahm Cook's teaching on "Uncommon Love")
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