The Treasure

Treasures

“Your love, God, is my song and I’ll sing it! …Your love, has always been our lives’ foundation” (Psalm 89:1-4 The Message Bible).

“Shut your eyes and imagine you are standing outside in the warm summer rain. The raindrops drench you, soaking you through and through. Let My Love do the same for you. Let it soak through you and wash away hidden fears.” (Jesus Calling by Sarah Young).

The love of God portrayed to us through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection is overwhelming, exciting and magnificent. His love is so immense—that it spans beyond my understanding. Many years ago, God whispered to me as I walked on the beach, admiring the serene view, listening to the constancy of the waves, and feeling the strong sea breeze. He whispered, “An ocean of My love for you, and you are so content with sea spray . . .” His gentle voice almost knocked me over.

“Sea spray—why am I content with just a tiny amount of His love, when His love is so vast?”

God’s love is bigger than you and I can imagine.

So often I have found myself on the sidelines watching His great love. Other times I have felt myself sticking my toes in the shallow edges of His deep love. In yet another instance, I found myself closing my eyes to His great love, and yet I still felt the sea spray. My favorite times are when I run with all my energy and jump into His great love with both feet. The longing of my life is to accept the love of Jesus as my identity, and learn to let His great love consume me and flow out of me, so I can share His love with others.

“Your love . . . our lives’ foundation.” (Ps. 89:1-4, MSB) The passage above, indicates that if we saw ourselves through the eyes of God’s tenderness and love, then we would have love for ourselves. If we personally embraced His unconditional love for each of us, we would live with a solid foundation of our identity in His belovedness. We would know and own this truth, which my heart cries to embrace—I am special, because God chose to love me. I have worth because Jesus, in His loving sacrifice, died for me. I can embrace this love because it is a gift from Him.

If we live each day wrapped in His love, then we can build our identity on His love. We do not have to look to the world for love—or to our spouse, or our children, or reach back to our childhood looking for love. Nor does the source of our love need to be captured in a church service, or in our performance at school or work. Neither is beauty a healthy place to discover love. God’s immense love reaches deep into the core of my soul and He says, “My love is enough; define yourself by My great love for you.”

“My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus, the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God” (Ephesians 17:14-19 The Message).

Thoughts-

Do you live immersed in God’s love or content with sea spray?

God,

Help me to accept how much You love me! In Jesus name

Unconditional

…” God is love” (1 John 4:8 NIV)

Where does humility meet truth; and truth meet grace; and grace meet the unconditional love of God? “God is love” (1 John 4:8 NIV). The very essence and nature of God is loving. He exists to love and He is incapable of being unloving because love is His very nature. Why is this concept so widely taught, yet rarely grasped? It leaves me wondering—this simple truth is so complex. GOD IS LOVE!

What keeps us from shaping our lives around this incredible gift of love?

His love is something great and powerful that settles in the deepest part of our being (that same part where I don’t like me), and He loves me there. His love is something that covers my mistakes or unwise choices and whispers, “It’s okay. You are forgiven and redeemed; look to Me.” His love combats the voice of the accuser that tells me that I should be more, do more, have more . . . His love settles into a deep canyon of my soul and tells me (and you), “You are worth living for and dying for.” His love silences the critical voices of the mirror and says, “You are my masterpiece.”

“The revolutionary thinking that God loves me as I am not as I should be requires radical rethinking and profound emotional readjustment . . . Antony Campbell remarks . . . The more I worked with it, the more I realize that the acceptance of faith of God’s unconditional love was not only hugely significant, it requires a major change of attitude . . . the major shift may be the images we have of God and ourselves. How radically is our image of God reshaped if we take seriously the belief in God as deeply, passionately, and unconditionally loving us? How radically must we rework our own self- image if we accept ourselves as loveable—as deeply passionate, and unconditionally loved by God.” (Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning)

That’s worth reading again! Let that thought sink into your mind and heart.

“How radically must we rework our own self- image if we accept ourselves a loveable—as deeply passionate, and unconditionally loved by God?” (Furious Longing of God by Brennan Manning)

St Augustine wrote, “In loving me, you make me lovable.”

Thoughts-

Ask yourself, “What makes me feel loved by God and others?”

Father,

I want the depth of Your great love to saturate my soul, driving out anything that keeps me from accepting this great love of Jesus. Help me to accept myself, because You embrace me completely. I rebuke the lies of the Enemy that would tell me that I am unworthy. I choose to see myself as lovable because You do. May this truth radically change my life. In Jesus’ name.