by David Brenneman
"There is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord."
ROMANS 8:39 GNT
Consider the profound, personal nature of how the Lord cares for you. God loves you. The most magnificent person in the universe delights in you. The Godhead-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-cherishes you. Immeasurably and eternally, the Sovereign of the universe has set His affection on you. You are the apple apple of His eye, the crown of His creation.
God loves you. This is not mere sentiment. His infinite goodness is directed to you in myriad ways- through how He created, saved, indwells, guides, and protects you. He listens to your petitions, gives you new mercies every morning, sustains you each day, and watches over you every night. And nothing in all creation can stop Him.
God loves you, He cares for you uniquely as an individual. No one knows you like He does, He knows your dreams, desires, and potential and wants to see you succeed. He calls you by name and speaks to you through His Word in the most intimate way.
"God loves me'" Begin and end each day with this affirmation Rehearse it in your soul, And may you come to know in the most personal way how true it is.
Jesus, keep me mindful of Your love always. Amen
- Trusting God with Today, Dr. Charles Stanley
God Loves You
"As the Father has loved Me, I have
also loved you; abide in My love."
John 15:9
Do you realize how profoundly God loves you? If not, you may feel discouraged and unfulfilled in your walk with Him. I can say this by experience. When was in my mid-forties, I was a very frustrated Christian. I'd been a believer for more than thirty years, and yet something was missing from my fellowship with the Lord. But I didn't know what it was. I knew God. I prayed daily, read Scripture regularly, and served Him. But I didn't have the divine joy promised in Scripture.
However, a transformation began as grasped the love the Lord has for me. God loves me. As simple as that may seem, I'd never truly understood its profound significance. He cares for me
personally. God revealed His powerful, bountiful, intimate, unconditional love to a very grateful Charles Stanley, and He's become more real, joyful, satisfying, and glorious to me every day since. That is what I pray for you. So please, take a pen or pencil and finish the sentence by writing in your name. God loves ___________.
Think about that statement. Close your eyes and say it to yourself several times each day. And accept it as true. God loves you. Personally. Completely. And He will never stop. Praise His wonderful name.
Jesus, thank You for really loving me. Amen
- Trusting God with Today, Dr. Charles Stanley.
"But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37-39.
At the risk of repetition...oh the depths that we really don't realize that God loves us!
Yes these are two of Dr. Stanley's entries from "Trusting God with Today".
But when life is getting difficult this is where we need to position ourselves. To be ever mindful of this core truth of our life in Christ: we are loved by God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit.
We may not gain understanding as to why our lives took the turns that they have. The rock solid truth is that we are loved by our God and nothing is ever going to change that.
We may not see it but it's as an absolute truth as you needing air to breathe.
These particular devotionals from that book just hit me so close to home. Right up there with how the song by Phillips, Craig and Dean "When God Ran"...the part where it's saying "son! he called me son! Do you know I still love you?!".
God's love is eternal and as many have taken to saying: He can't love you any more than He does and can never love you any less.
Many have taken to writing worship songs about the love of God. MercyMe's 2002 song "The Love of God" is one of my favorites.
What always hits me hard is knowing what I DO know about my utter sinfulness...and He still loves me. Likewise I am fully aware that there's other aspects of my life where the sinfulness of me isn't something that I am fully aware of but know is there. He still loves me. I know all too well of the very very dark moments of my life where I was drowning in darkness that He still was there and still pulled me up out of that pit of despair. Those times when all I knew was my perception of how great a distance my sin nature said was between God and I. He still pursued me.
If there's anything of value to be displayed from my life is that singular truth: God loved and loves me.
He loves you too my Dear Reader. Go back up to that one devotional and put your name in that blank spot. No matter how your circumstances appear to be: Jesus still loves you.
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ loves you, loves me. Satan and all the demons at his disposal cannot separate us from the love of God.
"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:31-39.
"Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8-9.
Do you see it yet?
Do you know it yet?
Jesus loves us and will never separate Himself from us.
The world both doesn't get this nor seeks this but it's on each of us who are counted as His beloved to tell them...to show them.
That old song "Jesus loves me" isn't just words on a page. They're at the core of our taking up our own cross and following Him.
We love because He first loved us. 1 John 4:19.
We truly shouldn't even joke about hatred or hating someone else. God is never glorified in us behaving in any way that doesn't show that God loves people.
Regardless of how evil people can be: Jesus still died for them.
Regardless of how we can be: we need to remember His love for us.
Our lives in Christ are eminently personal to Jesus. We read of how He is a jealous God. "Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: “He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us”? James 4:5.
Me, personally, as he suggested in that devotional I find myself needing to remind myself that God loves me. I need that because life's situations want me to doubt that truth. Interactions with people sometimes can be difficult and I need reminding that God loves me. Situations with things, with a job, happen and I need reminders that my God loves me. People abandoning me...and I need to look to my Savior who promised He never would leave me or forsake me.
We need to be like the sheep that David wrote about in Psalms 23. Jesus is our Great Shepherd.
Someone once wrote of an interaction with Jesus. Asking how much does He love them. Jesus answered "this much!" and He stretched out His hands and died.
Do you take the seriousness of the cross to heart? The depth of His love for you? The desire that should be within you to live lives in such a way that honors that love that bled and died for you?
God loves me, God loves you.
We will have eternity to scratch the surface of that truth if indeed we are saved in Christ Jesus.
All NASB Scripture Excerpts used by permission.
New American Standard Bible
(C) 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation.
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