Yesterday, I got the most AMAZING revelation and I just had to take a moment to share it with you! I was in the middle of teaching a message on receiving God's love (you can listen to it below). We know that God's love is limitless and unconditional towards us. And as I was teaching the message at our weeklyGo Hard for Christ youth service, this revelation hit me like a truck! This is what happened in the few minutes leading up to it. I asked our teenagers a simple question:
How do you feel loved by other people close to you?
I got all kinds of different answers. I feel loved...
"When people are honest."
"When people say nice things to me."
"When they encourage me!"
"When they are loyal to me."
"When they are looking out for me."
"By the way they take care of me!"
"When they give me things."
"When they go out of their way to do certain things for me."
The list went on and on... then the revelation hit!
If that's how you feel most loved by other people, how do you expect to feel loved by God if you don't allow him to do those same things to you and for you?
God is capable of doing each one of those things listed. God is love, and every scenario that we can come up with on how we feel loved will lead back to something that God did first and does best! God is love and He wants to love us unconditionally! But it's our job to put ourselves in the proper place so that we can receive God's love, and not reject His love. So ask yourself, how do I feel most loved by people? Then take inventory and see if you have allowed God to love you in that same way.
Several years ago my wife introduced me to something that changed my life forever. It changed how I viewed my relationship with my wife and with others. It also helped me to discover more about myself. It is called the five love languages - based on a popular book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. It's a great way to find out how you most feel loved by others. I found out that the way I most feel loved by my wife is words of affirmation and acts of service from her towards me. Amazingly, when I applied those things to my relationship with God, I found out that the same holds true. I feel so loved by God when he affirms me by speaking to me, and even receiving prophetic words from others. When God says those things to me I write them down and I go back to read them often. Then when God does things for me to make things easier or better in my life, that's just the icing on the cake. When He sends people to me to help serve the mission that he's given me, it expresses His love towards me. Even thinking about Jesus dying on the cross for me speaks love to me because it was the ultimate act of service and sacrifice.
Take the test and find out what your most dominant love languages are!
How do you feel loved by other people close to you?
I got all kinds of different answers. I feel loved...
"When people are honest."
"When people say nice things to me."
"When they encourage me!"
"When they are loyal to me."
"When they are looking out for me."
"By the way they take care of me!"
"When they give me things."
"When they go out of their way to do certain things for me."
The list went on and on... then the revelation hit!
If that's how you feel most loved by other people, how do you expect to feel loved by God if you don't allow him to do those same things to you and for you?
God is capable of doing each one of those things listed. God is love, and every scenario that we can come up with on how we feel loved will lead back to something that God did first and does best! God is love and He wants to love us unconditionally! But it's our job to put ourselves in the proper place so that we can receive God's love, and not reject His love. So ask yourself, how do I feel most loved by people? Then take inventory and see if you have allowed God to love you in that same way.
Several years ago my wife introduced me to something that changed my life forever. It changed how I viewed my relationship with my wife and with others. It also helped me to discover more about myself. It is called the five love languages - based on a popular book The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. It's a great way to find out how you most feel loved by others. I found out that the way I most feel loved by my wife is words of affirmation and acts of service from her towards me. Amazingly, when I applied those things to my relationship with God, I found out that the same holds true. I feel so loved by God when he affirms me by speaking to me, and even receiving prophetic words from others. When God says those things to me I write them down and I go back to read them often. Then when God does things for me to make things easier or better in my life, that's just the icing on the cake. When He sends people to me to help serve the mission that he's given me, it expresses His love towards me. Even thinking about Jesus dying on the cross for me speaks love to me because it was the ultimate act of service and sacrifice.
Take the test and find out what your most dominant love languages are!
If receiving a gift from someone makes you feel most loved, then how will you ever feel loved by God if you never choose to receive his blessings in your life? You MUST receive those gifts/blessings from God. Or if you are a person that translates love as spending quality time together, then it is of utmost importance for you to spend TIME with God, in His presence. If you don't, you might find yourself not feeling loved by God -- not because God has stopped loving you, but because you have not put yourself in proper position to receive His love. If loyalty and faithfulness are important, then it is important that you trust God especially in the hardest seasons of your life. It is then that God can show His faithfulness towards you and the resulting feeling will be love!
I believe this principle holds the key to TRULY receiving God's love. And as it says in 1 John 4:10, "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us..." Receiving God's love is how you put yourself into a position to live the blessed life that He's promised.
~David
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