God’s love

March 21, 2017

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Thought to share: I love you. Not because of what you do or how well you do it. Not for how well you perform or juggle life’s responsibilities. And I do not love you less because you don’t do enough or perform poorly. I love you exactly where you are, as you are. Nothing you do or don’t do can change MY love for you. Let this truth settle into your soul and sustain you. You are loved by ME eternally.

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.
Romans 5:8 (NLT)  But God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

August 16, 2016

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Thought to share: You cannot test MY boundaries because I have no boundaries. You cannot push ME to the limit because I AM limitless. You cannot exhaust ME because I AM inexhaustible. MY love for you is like nothing you’ve ever seen. MY faithfulness to you can’t be compared with any faithfulness you’ve ever experienced. I have chosen you and nothing you do or any way you behave can change MY faithful love for you.

Psalm 36:5 (NLT) Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.
Lamentations 3:22-23 (NLT) The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning.

July 12, 2016

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Thought to consider: Worry is looking at situations from the wrong perspective. When you worry, you are choosing to look at things from the negative perspective. You’re considering what-ifs and adverse possibilities. You are exploring a life without ME and MY provision. And as you worry, you are establishing ruts of dark and harmful thinking. Instead, choose to look at your situations through Truth. Consider them in light of MY promises. View everything as an opportunity for ME to display MY goodness, faithfulness and love in your life. You are exploring a life where I AM your source. As you do this, you are walking the path of hope, joy and freedom.

Luke 12:22-26 (NLT) Then, turning to His disciples, Jesus said, “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food to eat or enough clothes to wear. For life is more than food, and your body more than clothing. Look at the ravens. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for God feeds them. And you are far more valuable to Him than any birds! Can all your worries add a single moment to your life? And if worry can’t accomplish a little thing like that, what’s the use of worrying over bigger things?
Romans 15:13 (NLT) I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

June 21, 2016

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Thought to share: You are like a sponge. You have a tendency to absorb your environment and soak up the atmosphere. To prevent negative osmosis and flush out toxicity, soak in MY Presence. Come and be with ME. Disconnect from everything and just be with ME. Push aside all thoughts except ME. Fill your mind with thoughts of ME – meditate on MY love and goodness. Dwell on MY character. Soak in ME. Let ME fill you up completely, flushing out negativity, stress, anxiety and fear.

James 4:8 (NLT) Come close to God, and God will come close to you.
Psalm 62:5 (NLT) Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in Him.

April 12, 2016

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Thought to share:Do you know how much I love you? Do you realize how much I care for you? Do you know I love you individually – not just in the context of “everyone”. It’s you I adore. It’s you that I long to talk to and share MY heart with. You are the one who has captured MY heart. You are beautiful to ME and I AM in love with you. And this will never change. Meditate on this and let the reality of this truth sink into you soul.
Jeremiah 31:3 (The Message) I’ve never quit loving you and never will. Expect love, love, and more love!
Malachi 3:6a (NLT) I am the LORD, and I do not change.

You heard it right the first time.

I’m irritated. I just read an article someone shared. I won’t mention names, sites or titles – let’s just say it’s one of those lists of things the church has gotten wrong. And now I am highly annoyed.

Don’t misunderstand. The church – the collective body of Christ throughout time all over the world – has gotten plenty of things wrong. The Crusades. The Inquisitions. The Salem witch trails. Need I say more?

But one thing we have not gotten wrong is the love of God. I’m upset because the well-meaning author of the irritating article said that God’s love is conditional. And that is simply NOT true.

God IS love (1John 4:8). Love is the essence of who He is. Love is His nature. Love is the basis and foundation for everything He does. And since He does not change (Malachi 3:6 & Hebrews 13:8), then He will always be love and all He does will flow from His love.

God loves ALL of humanity – regardless of who you are, what you’ve done, what you look like, what your genealogy is, your ethnicity or socio-economic status is. John 3:16 makes that pretty clear: for God so loved the WORLD. The word “world” in this passage means the inhabitants of the world. If you are an inhabitant of this planet – God loves you. There are no exceptions.

Even if you don’t love God, He loves you. Even if you reject Him, He loves you. Even if you are unfaithful to Him, He loves you. Even if you renounce, curse and hate Him, deny His existence, choose to follow another “god” or reject Jesus, He loves you. Nothing you can ever do will change His mind about you. He faithfully loves you (Psalm 100:5).

And that is because His love for you is based upon who He is [LOVE] and not who you are. God’s love for us is not a response to us – our good behavior, good works or good words. God’s love initiates the relationship. He loved us first. (1John 4:19) And this is what makes His love unconditional – He is the initiator, reaching out to everyone, regardless. (Romans 5:8, Ephesians 2:4-5 & 1John 4:9-10)

We don’t have to perform for it. We don’t have to earn it. We don’t have to qualify for it. We don’t have to do anything. He freely pours His love out on all of humanity.

This is why Abba is so amazing [among other things!] – His continuing, unfailing, faithful, consistent, unrestrained, unlimited, unconditional love. It’s so deep, so wide, so expansive and vast that we simply cannot comprehend how great His love for us is. (Ephesians 3:18) His love for each, individual human is so far outside anything that we know or have ever experienced that we must have His help to be able to just grasp the edges of His incredible love for us! It is so deep, profound and expansive that eternity will not be enough time to explore and discover every aspect of His love.

And when we enter into a relationship with Abba through Jesus, the journey of exploration begins. We begin to experience His love for us in a greater way. The understanding of His love starts to unfold within us. We discover the benefits of His love. His love does some incredible things in us.

And we choose whether we want it or not. But our choice does not diminish the reality that He loves us all.

That’s why I’m irritated. God’s love is poured out on all of humanity without restriction. It’s such a wonderful, amazing thing. And I hate that anyone would ever think or feel that His great gift of love was not available to them. That they must meet some standard or criteria. Even if they don’t want it – I think they should know He still loves them.

So you heard it right the first time – GOD LOVES YOU.