“The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
Ephesians 3:16-19 (NIV)
I am always amazed when I think about the fact that God, knowing and seeing all that would happen, not only gave us free will, but loved us enough to send Jesus to die in our place. We cannot even begin to grasp the love God has for us. Shannon Ethridge in her book “Completely His” said something like, “God creates things for us to enjoy”. I will use some things that I enjoy as an example: God created cats, chocolate, butterflies, and the color pink for my enjoyment. This list could go on. I struggled for a long time to hold onto a heart-knowledge that God loves me. A wonderful pastor made it his mission to pour God’s love into me, and through him a heart-knowledge of God’s love for me took hold. This is a message from an e-mail that I have held onto, and it still speaks to me years later:
“God is so into you – he is ravishingly in love with you! You take His breath away and He adores the very ground you walk on – He is your knight in shining armor, and your very closest lover. May you more and more experience this greatest reality of all!”
I know it was around the time of the e-mail that God gently spoke to my heart, “Let me open your eyes to see the ways I say ‘I love you’”. I began to see that God says “I love you” in many ways. For me it is in cuddle time with my cats, time with a friend, someone praying for me, an anonymous postcard with a scripture that was perfect for the moment, a phone conversation with a friend, getting to see a butterfly, a song coming on that says just what I need to hear in the moment, a hug, and the list goes go on and on.
God does love you and He loves to give good gifts to you. God is lavishing His love on you and if you struggle to know this in your heart just ask him to let you see how He expresses his love for you.
Father, your love is greater than we can begin to understand. I thank you that you choose to love us and that you pursue a deeper relationship with us. Reveal all the ways you are expressing your love to those that struggle to believe that you love them. I pray for all of us to experience a deeper heart-knowledge of your great love for us. In Jesus’ precious name I pray. Amen.
— Tania Atkins
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