Lindsay Rouse

21D Fishers – Day 3: We Are Loved

So we’ve talked about God’s character and the nature of our Heavenly Father, our purpose, and tonight is all about who God says we are, which is our identity.

Like our purpose, we often put our identity in what we do such as our job or our role in society, but the Bible is full of truth that our Heavenly Father has spoken over us before we were even conceived.  One of the most important truths we need to hear and believe in our heart is that WE ARE LOVED.

Everyone close your eyes and place your hand over your heart and just speak that truth over your life.

I AM LOVED

This is sometimes hard to fully understand and grasp because we may not have always felt love in our natural relationships so we don’t have a good picture of what true love is.  But the bible paints these pictures of how we are loved by God.

  • We are loved unconditionally.
    • We touched on God’s unconditional love for us a little bit on Monday but I wanted to dive a little deeper into a few verses that have spoken to me and helped me understand how I am loved.
    • Romans 8:35-39
      • Nothing can separate us from the love God has for us. The first few times I read that, I didn’t fully understand why none of those things could separate us because it was in those times of death or trials that I had a hard time feeling loved.  But the Lord showed me through other scriptures that His love never changes and it stays the same day after day. It is up to us to receive His love as a gift.
      • In those times of death and trials when we don’t feel loved is when we are believing the lies of the enemy. Satan knows nothing can change God’s love for us so he tries to change our perception of love and tries to change our heart towards the Lord. He will try to whisper that in our hearts to get us to separate ourselves from the Lord and then he will shame us. We cannot believe the lies of Satan when he speaks shame over us.  We are not the shame spoken over us.
      • We are enough just by being US. We have the overwhelming victory through Christ and we need to stand on that promise when we feel distant from the Lord and press in further and deeper.  Be consumed in worship and praise.  Pray fervently as if your life depends on it because, honestly, it kind of does.
    • Isaiah 54:7-10
      • Isaiah was prophecying about God’s unending love, compassion, and mercy for Israel.
      • I love that in this passage we can almost feel God’s love tangibly.
      • We can clearly see His feelings and His heart and that our Heavenly Father hates discipline as the result of sin but loves relationship with His righteous followers and will give mercy in exchange for relationship.
      • There was also very definitive language used here…Everlasting love, faithful love WILL remain…My covenant of blessing will never be broken.
        • Covenant is a very serious pledge, promise, or vow. So God is saying here that his promise of blessing will never be broken.  Why would He commit to something so vast and of such great magnitude if His love was conditional?  He wouldn’t because 2 Corinthians says that his promises are yes and amen and if He is promising that this covenant of blessing will never be broken then He is promising that his love will never be conditional.
  • We are loved sacrificially.
    • John 3:16
    • 1 John 4:9-10
    • I personally do not have any children but I have family. I have nephews…I have brothers and sisters…I have parents and grandparents.  I am very close with my family.  I know that if my parents don’t answer their phone or call me back within a certain amount of time, I get a little worried…or maybe a lot worried but I’m praying about that.
    • This also reminds me of the story of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1 and 2 when she went to the temple to pray for a child. Pray was really an understatement.  She wailed…She made a scene…She was in deep anguish to where the priest Eli thought she was drunk but more importantly she made a vow to God that if she conceived a child, she would dedicate him back to the temple to serve the Lord for his whole life.  By God’s miracle-working hand, she conceived and she kept her commitment.  She kept her promise and covenant with God.  And because she was faithful with sacrificing her 1 son to serving the Lord, she was blessed with multiple other children.   I love the parallel and foreshadowing in this story to the sacrifice of Jesus.  God would sacrifice His 1 son but in return he would be blessed with many sons and daughters.
    • I can only imagine making that sacrifice and knowing my child would be born for the purpose of dying. I would offer myself as a sacrifice.  But that wasn’t an option for Jesus and our Heavenly Father.
    • The tradition in the Old Testament was to offer the Lord a holy sacrifice in exchange for forgiveness of our sin. There were specifications the lamb had to meet before it could be sacrificed.  The world desperately needed a Savior, we needed something more redeeming than just a lamb and a ritual.  We needed a relationship.  So, God sent us Jesus who met the requirements of a holy sacrifice, came to be in relationship with us and was then crucified as the pure and holy lamb of God.
    • This sacrifice was not forced but was freely given so that we could spend eternity with the Lord. This sacrifice was made as a new covenant of love.

And as Melissa said yesterday, our main purpose is to love God so how do we do that and give thanks for the sacrifice our Heavenly Father made?  We offer ourselves up as a holy and living sacrifice that is described in Romans 12:1-2.