Not Your Ordinary Love
“We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love, live in God, and God lives in them.
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I love this verse! It should bring us great joy to know that God loves us. God loves us without conditions, and his love is everlasting! (Jeremiah 31:3)
The sad truth, is that many people have a vague understanding of God’s love.
I know this was something that I struggled with for a long time!
In the beginning of my walk with God, this was really hard for me to understand. It was one of the reasons why I tried to stay away from, walking out the “Christian life”, for so long.
Being “saved”, just felt like a bunch of rules that I had to follow. In my eyes, it equaled to the absence of fun...like no fun whatsoever. 🙅🏾♀️
Back then, sinning was fun, and God was the strict parent, who wanted to take all of my fun away. It took me a while to realize, that God wasn’t trying to give me a bunch of rules, because he wanted to stop me from having fun. God was giving me guidelines for my life, to save me from the consequences of my actions.
Unfortunately, it took me doing things my own way (many times) to realize this. In dealing with the consequences of my mistakes, I began to realize, that God really did love me unconditionally.
God loves us so much, that He wants to protect us. God wants the best for us, and He wants to give us a life, far greater than we could ever imagine.
We can’t get to the place of comprehending this, until we begin to have an understanding, of the great love of the Father.
Having a greater understanding of God’s love, is something that is developed over time. This is developed through a close, and personal relationship with God.
Not only did I struggle with what I just mentioned, but I also struggled greatly with trusting God. This stemmed from being hurt by people. God had to change my way of thinking, to help me realize that He doesn’t love, the way people love.
For me personally, I had been hurt many times in relationships. It was hard to believe that God’s love was different from any of the, “so-called” love, I had experienced in the past.
Sometimes, we may inadvertently compare the love of God, to the love of man. In relationships, people have hurt us, lied to us, and let us down. We can be so deeply hurt by people, that we think God will do the same things to us, that others have done.
Some of us have even been hurt, and let down, by our earthly fathers. Believing that God is our Heavenly Father, that will never let us down, can be hard for us to truly grasp.
The Bible says that God is not a man, and therefore He cannot lie. (Numbers 23:19)
This means that since God is not human, He does not have the same human nature that we have. We are all capable of sin. God is not. It is 100% IMPOSSIBLE for God to lie.
“God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?
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There are so many lies that I have believed about God’s love. I shared my experiences, because I know that there are others, who can relate to my story. The enemy tells us all the same lies. Another truth is this…
God’s love is not based on Merit.
The love God has for us is not based on our performance. You can never be “good enough”, or perform well enough, to earn God’s love. The love of God is a gift, that is given freely to us.
When we make mistakes, God loves us. On our best day, God loves us. On our worst day, God loves us.
“GOD IS LOVE ❤️ ”
So, when you are faced with lies from the enemy, adversity, hardship, fear, anxiety, worry, or wondering if God still loves you, ALWAYS remember this, the love of God is no ordinary love.
NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD!
Today’s Prayer
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for your love. I’m am grateful that your love is perfect, and that it casts out all fear. Perfect your love in me (1 John 4:18). May my roots go down deep into your love and keep me strong. May I have the power to understand how wide, how long, how high, and how deep your love is. May I experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then I will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from You. (Ephesians 3:18-19) In Jesus Name. Amen.
Today’s Readings: Romans 8:38-39; 1 John 4:9-10
Romans 8:38-39 (NLT): “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
1 John 4:9-10 (NLT): “God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.”