Are you awake to God’s love for you? If your immediate response was to nod and think “Of course, I know God loves me”, I want to challenge you to dig a little deeper.
Many of us are walking around acknowledging in our minds that God loves us, but do we truly believe and know deep in our soul that He loves us? He loves you. Not just the good parts but all of you. He knows everything you’ve ever thought and ever done and He loves you, deeply. That kind of love is hard to comprehend. It can be tough to accept–we can feel so undeserving of this type of love.
I think a lot of us want to be loved by God, for Him to be proud of us, and pleased with us. But believing that He does and is already, is a whole different exercise. Much of believing, and experiencing God’s love, is affected by our own limited human perspective. We see ourselves through our own eyes, not through God’s eyes. He created us and knows every hair on our heads. When he looks at you He sees His beautiful daughter.
“If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.”
1 John 4:15-19
God is love and He knows no other way. Just a sweep through the gospels, we can see time and time again how much Jesus loved the people he came to save.
Through the story of Mary and her sister Martha as he stood with them in their grief, with the woman with ongoing bleeding, and even though he was busy, he took the time to stop and bring restoration to her physically as well as emotionally. He came alongside Mary Magdalene in her grief at the grave and called out her name and gave her great purpose.
Jesus wasn’t concerned with appearances or what was most efficient, he was concerned about each and every person he encountered. He wanted them to walk away feeling like they were the most precious person in the world and he would do anything for them.
Jesus came for each one of us. It’s so easy for us to think of God loving the world and forget that He loves each of us. He is a God who would leave the 99 to rescue the one.
Next time you read through the gospels, notice how Jesus came to each person, listened to them, truly saw them, reached into their situation, and loved them well. Each time, they walked away from an encounter with Jesus completely transformed and changed. For each person, there was life before Jesus and life after. They no longer were defined as one rejected, the outcast one, the one who suffers, or the sinner. They now saw themselves as one whom Jesus loves.
And His love for us is no different. Before we ever do a thing, whether we mess up or get it right. God loves us first and always. He will always look upon you as the beautiful daughter whom He loves. This is a love we can rely on.
“May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”
Ephesians 3:19
In this world we don’t experience this kind of love as often as we should, so it is understandable that we could struggle with fully embracing this type of love. But when we do, it changes us from our very core. It changes how we see ourselves and how we see the world. We find a peace and confidence like no other in being the one loved by God.
Once you are truly awake to God’s love for you and embrace your identity as the wonderful, beautiful, chosen, daughter of the King whom Jesus died for because of His great love for you, it changes you at your very core. It ripples out into every aspect of your life, including how you see yourself and others.
Today, take a minute to think about yourself this way. Picture Jesus looking at you with love in His eyes, feeling that humble confidence that you are His, and He is yours, and He loves you. You are one whom Jesus loves!
