YOU ARE GREATLY LOVED

What keeps us going when times are tough? When circumstances tell you that you are alone? Abandoned? Forsaken? Rejected? One way is to know that we are “greatly loved.”

Do you feel loved by God today? Some days I don't. Often times I measure His love for me by how well I perform and live the Christian life. Other times I measure it by whether or not I feel His love for me. this of course is conditioned by my emotional history, my circumstances, my mental and emotional health, and how I understand Him.

How do you know if God loves you? The place that I constantly must return to is His word. In the book of Daniel we read of the difficulties Daniel had faced and of the future difficulties that God told him he was going to face.

Three times an angel tells Daniel he is “greatly loved.”
"You are greatly loved.” (Daniel 9:23)
“O Daniel, man greatly loved.” (Daniel 10:11)
"O man greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage.” (Daniel 10:19)

Do you hear this? Daniel is not just told by God that he is liked by God. Daniel is not told that he is loved by God. Rather, God wants to make sure Daniel knows and feels the magnitude of how God feels about him by saying: YOU ARE GREATLY LOVED!

The love of God is a great power in the midst of difficult times.

Everyone who believes in Christ is meant to experience the same love:
“But God...because of the great love with which he loved us...made us alive together with Christ.” (Ephesians 2:4-5)

Oh reader, you are loved with “great love”—divine love, omnipotent love, omniscient love, unstoppable love, eternal love.

May the Lord open your eyes to see this, hear this, and feel this precious truth.

May you “have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge…” (Ephesians 3:18-19).

The word of the Lord for you this day is:

"You (put your name here) are greatly loved."
“Oh, (put your name here), man or woman greatly loved.”
"O man or woman greatly loved, fear not, peace be with you; be strong and of good courage."

Let these words sink into your heart, mind, and soul. Let them wash your mind and emotions. Let them rise you above how people have and are treating you. Let them cast away the lies about how you feel that God feels about you. Let them make you out of reach of your enemies and circumstances. Let them be the power by which thrusts you into your work and your day and your trials and your ministry. Let it be the sword you weld against bad news and difficult times.

"He brought me to the banqueting house,and his banner over me was love." Song of Solomon 2:4

"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,"For your sake we are being killed all the day long;we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:28-39

Marveling that God loves me and me and strengthened in that reality,
Pastor Bill