A Love Letter for Your Day… 💌

Today, we all find ourselves in different places. Regardless of where you are, what season of life you are in or who surrounds you, there is one thing that never changes… YOU ARE LOVED.

“For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world (YOU), that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 3:16 AMP

“Dear brothers and sisters, you are dearly loved by God and we know that He has chosen you to be His very own. For our Gospel came to you not merely in the form of words but in mighty power infused with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction.” 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5 TPT

When it all comes down to it, this is what our Dad really wants us to know truly, deeply and unwaveringly: you are loved.

HIS LOVE FOR YOU DOES NOT CHANGE.

No matter what you do.

No matter what you say.

No matter how you act.

 BUT HIS LOVE CHANGES YOU.

Because when you know this Love: what you do, what you say and how you act will reflect His love for you.

Some of us have always known the imperfect but still unconditional love of our earthly parents, family, friends and/or spouses, which makes grasping the unconditional love of our Father something we know both logically and deeply.

Some of us have never experienced this unconditional love on earth, which makes it insanely difficult to grasp on our own.

Some of us have not experienced it on earth but we know what it feels like to give it here.

Wherever you find yourself, you are not without love. You have a Shepherd, Who loves you deeply, cares for you intently and protects you entirely. You lack nothing. (Psalm 23:1) He wants you to know this, feel this and receive it undeniably.

How?

Unfortunately, there is no step-by-step process for fully receiving this love. Sometimes, you cannot pray enough to feel it. You can know it, hear it, read it, pray it, and it still might not stick that day. Some days, worship will bring it, and flesh will slap it right back off of you. You might feel it all day to wake up the next day and doubt it all over again. Why?

“Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8b NIV

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;” John 10:10a NIV

You have an enemy and he is a thief.

This might sound like bad news, a no solution problem. But do not lose heart. Because there is more to those verses. There is always more.

Jesus finishes that sentence in John 10:10 with, “I have come that you may have life, and have it to the full.”

Paul begins his warning in 1 Peter 5:8 with, “Be alert and of sober mind.” Which means… we can. *The Bible never tells us something to do that we cannot do with Him. “I can do all things [which He has called me to do] through Him who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.]” Philippians 4:13

So, what do we do? More than do, the answer is be. Be loved. Allow yourself to be loved.

What that looks like is going to look different for all of us. What that looks like depends on what we have been through, the ways we have been loved or how we have fought to love despite not feeling loved and all the ways we have seen God at work in our lives. And remember, we all fight an enemy who wants us to doubt God’s love entirely.

So to allow yourself, you must take this into your own hands, away from the enemy, knowing you are not alone. Jesus tells us throughout the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) that whatever we ask for in His Name for His Glory according to His Will, He will do. And that includes knowing His love. You can ask Holy Spirit to help you. Every day. The love is there. We just have to choose to receive it.

It’s like this: your kitchen has the ingredients (or maybe the grocery store or the restaurant), but the ingredients do not make themselves into a meal.

Let’s look back at John 3:16 NIV, first:

The love is there…“For God so loved the world”

He made the first move... “that He gave His one and only Son”

Then it is your turn... “that whoever believes in Him”

And you receive… “shall not perish but have eternal life.”

So just as you go to the kitchen or the grocery store to get the ingredients to make the meal, or you pick the restaurant and you look at the menu to order… wherever you find yourself today, you must first go to the Creator (Genesis 1:27), the Lover (1 John 4), the Savior (Titus 3:6-7), the Counselor (John 14:26).

Then, you must ask Him every day to show you His love for you, and He will. Be open, willing and ready to receive it.

If you need help knowing what to pray, we recommend Beth Moore’s Praying God’s Word, especially her section “Overcoming Feeling Unloved”. Another good resource is using your Bible app to search “show me I am loved”. Both of these resources give you straight Scripture to pray, which is how we pray and we recommend. (Also, this semester, we are studying Prayer in Girl Talk small groups, if you are interested in joining or starting your own.)

You have an enemy who wants you to forget and doubt so you do not see and receive “what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him.” (1 John 3:1)

But today and every day, you can know you are a child of God. Irrevocable. Irreversible. By a Dad who is more powerful than the enemy will ever be. For every attack he attempts to kill, steal and destroy, Jesus has come to bring us abundantly more life that has already defeated the enemy. You are already bought with the price of death, therefore death is defeated, LOVE WINS, and satan has no power (and you can tell him to go back to where he came from).

We belong to, walk with and have victory in our Dad, the God Who is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask, think or imagine according to the Power that is at work within us (Ephesians 3:20).

Why?

Because you are loved.

Receive His love today and walk it in.

You are His beloved.

Today and every day.

💌

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, Who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:1-10