Of Course I Know God Loves Me!

Dear Friends,

For much of my life, I thought I understood how much God loved me. My relationship with God was comfortable and safe. I called on Him when I needed something, He didn’t put too many demands on me and I did those things I felt were required to stay on His good side. My relationship with God had become as comfortable as the place that many of our relationships end up when we take each other for granted and fall into our comfortable and familiar patterns of behavior. The most obvious that comes to mind is how dangerous it is for those of us who are married. Somewhere along the way the passion and fire of our “first love” is reduced to a pile of barely smoldering embers. We are lulled into such a place of comfort that we don’t even realize what has happened. We are so comfortable with our spouse that we take what we have for granted and fail to realize how special that person is in our life! What I have come to understand better is that as I continue in my walk with the Lord it is crucial and significant that I not get too comfortable and take this relationship with Him for granted.

For instance, it was life-changing for me to discover what it means to live by grace and not performance. I understood that He loved me because I was doing things for Him. But I did not understand that He also loved me when I was not doing anything for Him. When I was hiding my sin, running from Him, and playing the impostor. I had it all together on the outside but was a mess on the inside. To simply come to the place of living in His grace, (defined as a state of being protected by God), helped me to see that there was much more about Him that I did not know. I heard Jack Taylor say, “If you claim to know what you don’t know, you will never know what you do know.”

If you had asked me, do you know God? I would have answered, “Of course, I know God. I’ve been a believer since I was twelve years old!” As I later discovered I was claiming something I really didn’t know and it was keeping me from fully knowing how little of God I did know. If I had stayed in that place of comfort claiming that I did know God, I would never have come to the place of wanting to know Him more. When I began to understand how infinite His love for me is I began to grasp the verses in Romans 8:38-39, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” That’s incredible!

You might ask, how did this happen, that you came to a place that you wanted to know God better? It came when I made a conscious decision to spend more time in His presence. Brennan Manning wrote in his book, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, “The longer you spend in the presence of Jesus the more accustomed you grow to his face, the less adulation you will need because you will have discovered for yourself that He is enough. And in the Presence, you will delight in the discovery of what it means to live by grace and not by performance.”

What incredible freedom this brought to me. Not only did my life not need to revolve around the acceptance and approval of others, but also if my Father God was pleased with me, everything else was of little consequence. At first reading this statement may sound a bit arrogant but think about this. If I am living a life that is pleasing to Him, I will be living out His love for others and treating them with the same love and grace that is being extended to me by God.

If you were to ask me today, do you know God? I would say, “Yes and no.” Yes, I know Him as much as I can at this point in my life, but no I do not know Him as well as I will in the years to come. My quest is now to know what I don’t know which will help me to better understand what I do know. My question for you is, do you know how much God loves you, and how valued you are? Do you understand that He wants to have a passionate, fully alive relationship with you, much like that fire that burns in you when you first fall totally in love with someone? Or are you comfortable where you are?

WHY NOT WASTE TIME WITH GOD

It’s About Relationship!

WHY NOT WASTE TIME WITH GOD: MOVING BEYOND A SUPERFICIAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD TO LIVE IN INTIMACY WITH HIM

“This book frames spiritual growth with God’s heart, given in his Son and validated by His Spirit. This book demolishes our excuses and defenses against divine intimacy. This book is for those willing to have a fresh self-encounter and a fresh God-encounter,” Dr. Don Williams

God wants to hang out with you. We so often feel as if we must be doing something even when we are with God that it’s difficult for us to grasp that He wants to be our friend. In order for deep friendship to develop there are times when we must spend time together doing absolutely nothing but being together.

This book will help you understand that, but only if you apply it will it help you live it. Everything in this world fights against time alone with God. Everything in God longs for time alone with us. Why would you possibly choose to be influenced by the former?

You can order directly from our store at THIS LINK – Why Not Waste Time With God or call 661-833-2920.

Thank you for your prayers and support for Wholeness Ministries. You are vital in our continuing work.

God bless,

Mike