do you love God more than he loves you?

Do you love God more than he loves you? I know it sounds like a ridiculous question but without knowing it, I think a lot of us actually live as though we love God more than he loves us. 

     Think about what happens when you love something. You treat it well. Do you believe this about God? That he treats you well? With kindness and concern? Or do you think deep down that he is holding a mistake you made against you?

     When you love something you give to it. Do you believe God GIVES to you? Gives good things to you? Or do you think deep down that he gives you things only to take them away? That he saves his blessings for the people he thinks deserve it?

     When you love something you accept it how it is. Do you believe God accepts you how you are? Or do you think he looks at you as a fixer upper that he cannot love fully until the transformation he wants to see in you is complete?

     When you love something you challenge it in love to become the best that it can be. Do you believe God challenges you in love or do you believe that he is just waiting on you to change and meet impossible standards? 

     If you can't answer these questions right away with a booming YES, then maybe you are making the mistake that I have made my entire life. After learning what God did for me on the cross and being changed by it, I have focused so heavily on the ways that I love him, how I give to him, how I serve him, that at times I completely ignore the most important factor which is how he loves me daily in tangible ways that I should be able to see.

     If someone asks 'how do you know God loves you?', there has to be more to it than 'he died for me on the cross'. Even though that is more than enough, there is SO MUCH MORE to it than that. It's all good and well that Jesus died on the cross, but we will feel so far removed from that moment if we don't fix our focus on how the power of what he did 2000 years ago carries into our PRESENT....into our here and now.

     Jesus dying on the cross is not just a moment in history that came and passed. Jesus dying on the cross is a display of love that is still active and working on our behalf today. The power of the cross is not just in the fact that now we get to go to heaven. The power of the cross is in the very present comfort, security, joy, peace, and fulfillment we can have as we live life on this earth. If the implications of what Jesus did on the cross are not actualized in our realities today, then so much of what God intended with the cross can get lost.

     If someone was to ask me "how do you know you love God"? I would probably say...well, I give him my time, I give him my money, I do my best to live right, I love others. The scary part is that if I don't truly believe good things about God's love for me, then deep down I might actually think that I'm giving him the better deal! If the truths of God's perfect love are not things I believe wholeheartedly, then I might not be able to believe that he loves me at all! (In walks resentment)

    Here's all I'm saying. Jesus did not just love us once 2000 years ago. What he did set into motion an everlasting, enduring love for us that is present and inescapable. We have to believe that his love for us is all that it's cracked up to be. When we take the focus off of all the ways we love and serve God and fix our awareness on the ways that he loves and and cares for us, then we can truly recognize how special and cherished we really are to him, and love him from THAT place. 

     I will challenge you with a quote I read recently from an amazing book called "The Mended Heart" by Suzanne Eller:

"I pray. I read. I journal. I spend time with You. But when I get up from this place, my life seems no different. I still battle the same fears and insecurities. What am I missing Lord? Where is the victory?.....Then [the Lord] spoke: 'I get that you love Me. But you don't seem to understand that I love you. So from now on--until I tell you differently-- every time you're about to say I love you Lord, I want you to turn it around and say "You love me Lord". Say it now.'"

Say it now my sweet girl.

Love you always,

Lauren