How Deep is the Father's Love for Us? Here are 10 verses that just barely scratch the surface. So encouraging!!!
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3 Timeless Truths about God’s Love for Us
God’s Love Is Incomprehensible. Though we can read about God’s love in the scriptures, we can’t fully understand. It is beyond our complete comprehension because God’s love is so perfect, complete, satisfying, and faithful. There is no human love that comes even close. The Apostle Paul described the love of God for us as that which surpasses human understanding (Ephesians 3:19).
God’s Love Is Unconditional. As human beings, we love others most often conditionally. We are drawn to some people more than others and as a result, we love the ones we feel connected with. God, however, loves each of us unconditionally. His love for you never changes. You can rely on His love (1 John 4:16) and trust that it will never change. God’s love never diminishes or varies. It’s constant and consistent. In fact, the Apostle Paul writes that “nothing can separate us from the love of God” (Romans 8:35).
God’s Love Can Be Experienced. Though His love is beyond our understanding, God still desires that we feel and experience the depths of His love. In Ephesians 3:17-19, where Paul describes the dimensions of God’s great love He prays that believers would “grasp” this great love. That word “grasp” in Greek carries more than just the idea of head knowledge. What Paul is praying is that believers everywhere would experience feeling and resting in God’s love.
What do you do if you don’t feel loved by God? Begin thanking and praising Him by faith that you are deeply loved. Thank Him every morning when you wake and every evening when you lay down to sleep. Memorize a few key verses about His love. Remind yourself often through your day that you are deeply and categorically loved by God. Gradually, as you praise and thank God for His love, you’ll start to feel loved by God. Honestly, there is no one who loves you more.
How Does God’s Love for Us Change Our Lives?
Internalizing God’s deep love for us changes everything. Once you really begin to experience and feel secure in God’s love, it changes how you love others. It changes the core of your identity. You no longer define yourself by what you do or by what you accomplish but by the fact that you’re a beloved child of God. It changes how you love others. You begin to love others out of the overflow of a full heart. It changes your desires and dreams. When you live with a constant awareness that you are deeply loved by God you begin to desire what God desires. You dream about making His love known to others and joining Him in whatever He is doing in our world. It changes how you pray because you long to be in constant communion with your heavenly Father. Honestly, there is no truth that will change your life as radically as grasping the love of God for you! You will begin to wake in the morning, celebrating, “My Abba Father loves me!” Nothing can change that truth nor compete. You are categorically loved and treasured!
The next time you feel unloved create some space in your life to meditate and ponder the love of God for you. Remember, His love is incomprehensible and unconditional, and yet, God’s love for us can be experienced! Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a greater experience of God’s love. It’s a prayer He loves to answer.
-Excerpted from How to Understand and Internalize God's Deep Love for Us by Becky Harling on Crosswalk.com
Read the article in full here.
Related: 5 Beautiful Verses to Affirm God's Unfailing Love
Photo credit: ©GettyImages/ PaulCalbar
Originally published Monday, 12 October 2015.
