The Personal Love of God

I don’t like starting a blog about God’s love with the devil, but we must be aware of how the enemy works to blind us from realizing the truth of God’s love. He does not want us to understand the reality and depth of God’s love, and he doesn’t want us to believe God’s love for us is on the deepest, truest, purest, personal level. If he can keep us from fully accepting, receiving, and embracing God’s love, he is set up to steal from us on a level that cripples us in the spiritual battle. And the reality is, the spiritual battle often comes to us as intense suffering.

 

It seems easier to believe John 3:16, that God so loved the world and just the same, we might say Hallelujah and Amen to Romans 5:8 that addresses His love toward us in a plural sense.

 

But God demonstrates His own love toward us,

in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

 

But do we believe and grasp His love is very personal and on a one-on-one level? The devil’s biggest lie he uses against us in a season of suffering is, “if God loved you…” Understanding God’s deep, personal, pure love for us changes everything when it comes to the spiritual battle and suffering. Therefore, we must focus on taking God’s love personally. It is essential that we become so sure of God’s personal love that we can confidently say,“God loves me,” especially in the fiercest of spiritual battles and suffering.

 

Embracing God’s Eternal Love

Our starting point to embracing God’s love is founded in the fact that we are God’s child.

 

For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"

Romans 8:15

 

God’s love repositioned us from slave to heir of God and co-heir with Christ. This repositioning from a slave to sin, to a child of God is a position given to raise us out of fear and being manipulated and controlled by fear. The commentary I read regarding this passage said that the phrase, Adoption as sons points to a theological truth of the security of the believer. In that day, Roman law made it difficult to adopt. However, once adoption was complete, it was permanent. So much so that a natural child could be disinherited, but an adopted child could not.

 

At best we can only fathom love that fluctuates. Many of us have been in a relationship where we have loved intensely initially. We were sure that love could never fade or diminish, only to find that it did. But God’s love for us never fades. Psalm 36:7 and Psalm 109:26 tells us God’s love is unfailing.

 

God’s love is permanent. God loves you with a permanent love. So when the enemy taunts you with his biggest lie, “if God loved you…”, you respond with the truth of Romans 8:15-17. Tell him, I am an adopted child of God, loved by God personally and permanently.

 

The Lord of old has appeared to me, saying: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you.”

Jeremiah 31:3

  

Positioned To Call God, Abba

God repositioned us His family giving us access to a deeply intimate and personal relationship with Him that gave us the right to address God as, Abba. Abba was an Aramaic term. Jesus and His disciples spoke Aramaic. The commentary I read said, Abba was what they called their fathers at home. For you and I, it would have equated to the personal and intimate term of Daddy or Papa.

 

I love this. I love how God’s love to us is so personal and intimate, that He says, Just call me, Daddy. Interestingly, I have found this such a point of contention throughout my years in ministry. Since early in my journey with the Lord, I have prayed to my Heavenly Daddy. This has been an issue I’ve continually faced where people have said I shouldn’t call God, Daddy. My answer is always Romans 8:15.

 

When anyone says something against me calling God Daddy, I realize they have not fully accepted and received God’s love personally. Please know that I am not saying you have to call God Daddy to have accepted and received how personal His love is. I am simply saying if a believer in Christ can’t accept someone using that intimate relational term, Daddy for God, that person probably hasn’t fully accepted and received God’s love for them on this deeply intimate and personal level. I want us to get past that because if we don’t we are sure to buy into the enemy’s lie, If God loved you…

God’s Beyond Us Love

Think back on Romans 5:8 that communicates God’s love in Christ dying for sinners, even the most lost of His children. As mothers we would probably say that we would die for our children, but would we die for our children if they had turned against us? What if they rejected our love and everything we ever taught them? What if they had opposed us, violated us, betrayed us, or harmed us in some way? Would we still say that we would die for the estranged child?

 

You see, Romans 5:8 isn’t a picture of Jesus dying for his little child that is dedicated and devoted to Him and loving Him.  Instead, we see God in His perfect, parental love dying for the child who had rebelled against his parent, who was living completely separate from, and opposed to his parent. This depth of love is beyond us.

 

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

John 15:13

 

God’s love for us personally, for you, for me, is beyond us. His love is greater. It’s more sacrificial than we can fathom and comprehend and as 1 John 3:1 said He lavished His marvelous love on us by making us His very own children.

 

How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. Psalm 36:7

 

When we think about God’s love being beyond us, it makes sense that His love is priceless. From a human standpoint, what kind of value would we attach to a human relationship where we were loved so completely, so sacrificially, while also knowing that love would never fade or fail. That kind of love truly is priceless, but it is only found in God’s love.

 

Bible Verses About God’s Love

I encourage you to take some time to look with wonder at God’s marvelous love for you personally. Listed below are several other Bible verses for you to meditate on about God’s love.

When you read these verses, consider your own greatest depth of love for those you love the most. Recognize that God’s capacity to love you is greater than your greatest capacity to love those you love the most. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth and depth of God’s love for you personally and to establish that truth in your heart so that you cannot be shaken by the enemy’s lies.

 

Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.

Psalm 136:26 (ESV)

 

But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children.

Psalm 103:17 (ESV)

 

Help me, LORD my God; save me according to your unfailing love.

Psalm 109:26

 

For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me

from the depths, from the realm of the dead.

Psalm 86:13 (NIV)

 

 Prayer: 

Precious Heavenly Daddy,

Help us see and fathom to the highest degree that it is humanly possible, how great Your love is toward us. Help us take your love for us personally so that it can have a practical effect in our personal lives. Your word shows us that those who did take your love personally found that you were their help, their salvation, their deliverance. Lord, we need to know the depth of Your love for us. Holy Spirit open our eyes to see the truth of Your love for us personally, in Jesus’ name I pray. Amen

 

Much Love and Blessings,

Pat Domangue