Loved

Do you remember how you felt when you received a love letter or a love note? Do you remember reading them over and over again. Everybody wants to be loved.

We are supposed to be loved in our families bur sadly this is not always the case. Sometimes the very ones who are supposed to love us abuse, manipulate, and afflict us instead of loving us. Many people have suffered the pain of growing up not feeling loved or accepted in their family.

People try to cope with this reality in different ways. Some think if they just perform better they will get the loving approval from their parents they have always longed for. They work hard at achieving and pleasing. They are compliant. They make good grades. They follow the rules. They achieve success at school. In many cases the love and affirmation are still not given by insensitive and hard hearted parents.

Others cope with not feeling loved by chasing relationship after relationship. For the unloved their worth is attached to having a boyfriend or girlfriend or being married. In many cases it does not even matter if the person they date or marry is a follower of Jesus. Unloved people are easy prey for sweet talking manipulative people who are willing to play at love to gratify their selfish desires. Unloved people who so badly want to be loved often end up feeling used and abandoned.

You can see the difference in children who have been showered with love and affection compared to those children who have been unloved and rejected. It affects a child's self worth and confidence.

While I grew up in a loving family it was dysfunctional. Love for me was based on performance. That meant performance on the football field. Nobody in my family ever told me they loved me based on how I performed, it was something engrained in my psyche. I don't recall a lot of verbal expression of love in my family. People expressed love by what they cooked for you or bought for you. They did not say it. I needed to hear it.

When love is based on performance we are in trouble because nobody performs perfectly all the time. If love is based on  what you look like we are in trouble because beauty fades with age. If love is based on who you associate with what do you if those people disavow you. If love is based on other conditions than the choice and will of another  to love unconditionally there will be trouble.

Yesterday afternoon I sat alone in the warehouse where our church meets in prayer preparing to preach that night. The reality of a truth stunned me. It is not a new truth. In fact it is one of the fundamental truths of the whole Bible. It hit me hard yesterday stopping me in my tracks. I got  prostrate before the Lord. What is that truth you ask.

I am loved. I am loved by God! Despite my potful performance of service for Him I am still loved by God. When others betray and abandon me I am still loved by God. On my worst day when sin dominates me I am still loved by God. I did not say God loves my sin but He still loves me. [Rom 8:39] informs us that nothing can separate us from that love of God.

There are countless people in this world who stumble though life feeling unloved. If they could see the truth they are loved by their Creator. If they could just understand that they can't earn this love it is freely given because God chooses to bestow it. If they could grasp the truth that God's love is not based on what they do or do not do. And the tangible proof of God's love will always be the cross and Jesus' death there to atone for our sins. [Rom 5:8]

You may be reading this today and saying, "Get on with it Matt. I know I am loved by God. Big shocker there. That really took a lot of imagination to write about that topic." Do you really grasp this truth.

Do you live day in and day out with the thought that you are loved by God? Do you really grasp the concept that there is nothing you can do to make God love you more and there is nothing you can do to make Him love you less. HE JUST CHOOSES TO LOVE YOU. Whether you feel you deserve it or not He loves you.

My performance has been less than stellar lately. The sobering truth that God still loves me hit me hard yesterday afternoon. I felt unworthy. Yet I also felt comforted and secure that a gracious and merciful God loves me and has taken this wretch and wrapped him in righteousness. [II Cor 5:21]

I am  loved by my wife. I am loved by my boys. I am loved by some friends and some of the people I have served add their pastor over the years. I AM LOVED BY GOD and my worth is attached to that.