Why Does God Love You? Guest Blog By Greg Henry
Why Does God Love You? Guest Blog By Greg Henry
April 14, 2016 No Comments on Why Does God Love You? Guest Blog By Greg Henry
First let me just say what an honor it is for Dave to ask me to contribute to his blog, and how thankful I am to be able to share God’s heart with all of you.
I want to talk about why it is that God loves you. For so long in my life I would hear that God loves me, but it was always a struggle for me to experience His love for me. I felt like I was picking petals off of a daisy and with each petal I picked alternating between “He loves me, He loves me not”. I heard things from well intentioned people such as God doesn’t love you because you are lovely. He loves you because He is love. Now, I am not against these people. And I believe their only intent was to try and persuade me that God loves me. But, what I found was that type of reasoning did not possess the power to persuade my heart of God’s love for me. It did not possess the power to cause me to experience God’s love for me. I heard things like it did not matter if I felt loved by God. I just need to know in my head that God loves me. But, God’s love for you is not designed to be something you are just supposed to have an intellectual knowledge of and then use your willpower to believe it is true. God does not say to Himself, “Well who cares if they feel my love for them or not because I know that I love them”. God is not sitting in the place where He says love is not a feeling. Try telling God that His love for you does not cause Him to feel something in His heart.
Imagine I should tell my wife that it does not matter if she is able to feel my love for her or not. Imagine I tell my wife the reason I love her is because of my goodness, not because she is lovely to me. Will she ever be able to believe she is lovable? Will she ever be able to experience my love for her? We have made it very difficult for people to experience God’s love for them by the way we have tried to explain it. We have explained it in a way that is as if to say God does not have a choice but to love us. So even if we are unlovable God must love us whether He wants to or not. A person can never experience the breadth, the length, the depth, and the height of God’s love for them if this is the foundation they function from. A person can never experience someone’s love for them, unless they can first believe they are worthy of love; unless they can first believe they are lovable. I can love my wife with all my heart, with all my strength, and with all my soul. But, if she does not believe she is lovable, she will never be able to experience my love for her. God does not desire for you to be condemned to the kind of life where you are unable to experience His love for you. His desire is for your life to be shaped by His love for you. He desires for you to be able to experience His love for you in every situation and every moment of every day. He wants you to know His love for you, not just by knowing in your head that He loves you but, because you are experiencing His love for you in the deepest part of your being.
The apostle Paul prayed in Ephesians 3 that we might have an experiential knowledge of the love of God that would far surpass just knowing in our heads that God loves us. He prayed we would know the love God feels for us by way of having experienced it in the deepest part of our being. And through being able to experience God’s love for us we would be filled with all the fullness of God.
Proverbs 4:23 says out of the heart flow the issues of our life. Out of what you believe in your heart will be the driving force behind what you experience. Out of what you believe in your heart about things will be the driving force behind what manifests in your life. I always looked at this verse and only equated it to people. But, Genesis says mankind was created in the image and likeness of God. If it is true that what you believe in your heart determines what manifests in your life and you were created in the image and likeness of God; then it must also be the same way with God. It must also be that the driving force behind what manifests in God’s life is what He believes in His heart. It must also be that the driving force behind what God feels is what He believes in His heart.
When I think of my wife the reason I love her is because of the beauty I behold in her. The reason I find love in my heart for my wife is because of what I believe about her in my heart. When I look upon my wife; when I think of my wife and all her ways my heart is filled with such beautiful thoughts. I find they give birth to love in my heart for her. It is the same way with God. When He looks upon you; when He thinks of you and all your ways His heart is filled with such beautiful thoughts, He finds it gives birth to love in His heart for you. God comes to cause you to be able to experience His love for you through the revelation of the beauty of His thoughts for you. He comes and reveals the thoughts He has of you that cause Him to love you in the person of Jesus. In order that you can behold the beauty of His thoughts for you and be persuaded you are lovable. In order that you can behold the beauty of His thoughts for you in the face of Jesus and be persuaded you are worthy of His love. And through this you can find yourself experiencing the same love in your heart that God feels in His heart when He thinks of you!
When God looks upon you He beholds so much beauty in you; the only thing that can give expression to the beauty of His thoughts for you is Jesus. When God looked upon you His heart was so overwhelmed with feelings of adoration towards you that He made a judgment; a determination that you satisfy every desire He has ever felt in His heart for friendship and eternal life. When He looked upon you He made a judgment in His heart that you are everything He ever dreamt of when He desired for there to be someone He could share His life with. When He looked upon you He made a judgment in His heart that you are His dream come true. When God looked upon you He made a judgment in His heart that you are the apple of His eye. When God looked upon you He made a judgment in His heart that you are all fair; that there is no spot or blemish in you. And out of this judgment that God made about you when He looked upon you it gave birth to Him loving you! When I think of this I feel loved!
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