For the last 3 or 4 years, God has been revealing to me just how little I know about His unfathomable love for me. I have lived a performance based Christianity for so long that it is difficult for me to grasp how deep His love for me really runs.
This summer I was reading the book of Job, I began to see Job from a different perspective. I had heard John Eldredge quoted as saying the book of Job is a picture of the incredible battle raging over our core beliefs and God's fierce determination to expose those beliefs in order to heal them. This made sense to me since I have experienced some of the deepest pain of my life over the past two years, a type of Job experience. In the midst of it all, He kept asking me, "What is this pain revealing to you?" For the longest time I didn't know how to answer that question. Now I'm beginning to see what He's getting at.
At the deepest levels of my heart, I have not had as a core conviction the fact that He loves me. And so when things in my life go sour, I tend to blame Him, or question His goodness, or respond in any number of other erroneous ways.
And so He has initiated a new part of my journey that I call, "Learning to live loved". What would my life look like if I lived it from the foundation of our Father's love being lavished upon me? How would I interpret my circumstances (good or bad) in light of His love for me and what difference would it make? How would I treat others differently if I really believed at my core that He loves me? What would happen to my motives for all that I do?
4 comments:
This looks good. I too am starting to deal with Father's love for me on a deeper level. I look forward to this ongoing discussion.
all right, John, looking forward to hearing what you're learning. Let us know how we can be of help.
So, any takers on the question, "What does it look like to live loved"?
so many ways to qualify this. If one truly lives as if he's loved by God, He'll have (eventual) genuine remorse for sin because sin grieves God's heart. But he will move forward toward holiness with joy and freedom, not fear of punishment or self flagellation because God has opened the way through the resurrection. It will be evidenced by the way he lives, but that will not be his primary concern. But that's just one of the ways.
Post a Comment