The Look of LOVE By Debra Courtney

Heart clouds courtesy zcool.com.cn

God has BLESSED us because He LOVES us. I know that may sound simple, but it’s vital revelation. It’s a revelation that takes the struggle out of receiving from God, and it’s rooted in the first Bible verse most of us know by heart.

“This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. “John 3:16. MSG

You have read this verse who knows how many times. Most of us know it from memorization. Notice that verse doesn’t say God so LOVED the Christians. It doesn’t say God so LOVED the people who were seeking Him and trying to be nice. No, it says God so LOVED the world.

That would be you and me. There was a time when you and I were both in that world. We were spiritually dead – steeped in sin and opposing God at every turn.

Yet He gave us His most precious gift, His Son! His LOVE to us!

Why should we have to struggle to receive from a God who LOVES us so much?

Surely, as Romans 8:32 says, “If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son.” MSG After all, we’re not unsaved sinners anymore! We’re God’s “BELOVED.” Now more than ever, we can be certain of His LOVE for us.

In Jesus, we’re already BLESSED! He saw us and LOVED us before we were born! If we understand that and fix our hearts on His great LOVE for us, keeping His commands, LOVING others and living by faith is no sweat. It’s simply our way of responding to what God has done for us.

First John 4:10, explains it this way: “It’s the person who loves brother and sister who dwells in God’s light and doesn’t block the light from others.”  MSG

We have to believe the LOVE God has for us and stop struggling. “What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.” Galatians 5:6. MSG

By putting God’s LOVE for us first place in our thinking – by fellowshipping with Him. Saying to ourselves: “My God LOVES me! I am My Father’s BELOVED! He LOVES me just as much as He LOVES Jesus! The cross is LOVE! The empty tomb is LOVE! His LOVE for me covers all!”

That kind of thinking, according to 1 John 4:18, “Well-formed love banishes fear….” MSG It makes us bold in our believing. Empowering us to LOVE God and others – not like soldiers obeying a command, but because we, ourselves, are so LOVED that we have plenty of LOVE to give!

Jesus did all that for you. He did it all for me. Because He LOVES.

The struggle is over when we look into the eyes of LOVE.

Debra Courtney

Debra’s life goal is to inspire and motivate women globally to become all they have been created and designed to be by using the guiding principles of their Creator’s word in gaining wisdom, understanding their designed-given personality identities & create their independence!

A Love Letter from the Heart of the Father ~ A Guest Post by @DaveGeisler

Photo by Shelley Hendrix

Love Letter from the Father

by 
Dave Geisler


I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸ may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.                                                     Ephesians 3 NIV

My dearest little one,

Looking at you makes my heart leap for joy. I remember the first time I got to see you and how when I held you I wept, I wept the greatest tears of joy. I knew at that moment that I would always love you not matter the circumstances, no matter the cost, whether you liked it or not I was absolutely crazy about you. You hadn't done a single thing to earn it or to merit my affection but it was and still is there, alive and always ready to share the things of this world together.

Oh my dear little one did you know that I counted your fingers and toes just for the shear pleasure of it! I doted over you as you slept, for hours on end, speaking gently so not to wake you telling you all my hopes and ambitions for us. Did you know that when I looked at that perfect little face I took my finger and traced every part of it? Did you know that as excited I was for that very moment I couldn't wait to experience the next and the next and the next one alongside you?

And now my little one as you are getting older, I now love you more than I did the moment I first got to hold your tiny little hand. It astonishes me that even when you get grumpy and tired how this same love, yet even stronger, can knit my heart to yours. And now I get to take you on the most wonderful adventures and unveil so much of the mysteries of this world to you and even get to experience it brand new through your beautiful little eyes.

My hope for you is that you would personally know and rest into the breadth and length and height and depth of the love I have for you. That you would come to realize, without a doubt, that I am for you and not against you. That I love you with a love that doesn't end and I am always here for you no matter what has happened. That there is not one thing you could do to turn me away from you. That my love for you is pure even when every other love seems tainted. That if you so desire you can always come and sink into the arms of daddy and know that I will wipe every tear from your eye and restore your loveliness when this world seeks to snatch it away from you.

You are my most prized treasure yet I know that I cannot hold on too tightly. For you my dear one must have wings to fly and to experience all that this time and space has to offer. I hope and pray that you will receive and believe my plans for you, that they are good and not to harm you. And when you find yourself in need you can always come to me for grace and mercy, I’m always available to you. Oh my little one, how I love you, how I dearly love you.

Your Abba Daddy 

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Written by Dave Geisler, Pastor of A Grace Place Church in Bradenton, FL and a mighty carrier of this message of grace, new identity and New Covenant living.

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