Lavish Love

In this week’s article by Pastor Bob, he encourages us to remember that God desires an intimate, loving relationship with us as His children. If we truly comprehend our standing in Him as one of a child to its father, it’s going to change the way we think about Him, and that will change the way we relate to Him.

I know the church sometimes struggles between a liberal, feel-good, easy belief system; and a dogmatic system of rules and regulations to “keep everyone in line.” I speak only from my own experience of coming to understand the Father’s love and how it changed my life.

I’ve believed in God pretty much my whole life, but I didn’t always understand that He loved me not because of anything I did or didn’t do but because of who He was and what He did for me through Jesus. Even though I believed in God and wrong and right and Heaven and Hell, that didn’t stop me from doing a lot of stupid, shameful things. Oh sure, I worried that if I died I wouldn’t make it to Heaven, but that fear didn’t motivate me to change my ways. Eventually, my frustration with failing at “being good” led me far away from God.

I now understand that whether I’m good or bad, God’s love doesn’t change one iota. But this understanding has not given me a “license to sin.” Rather, it’s revolutionized my relationship with Him. It wasn’t until I came to see God as a father who loved me unconditionally and without merit that I fell so deeply in love with Him that obeying and pleasing Him became my highest priority.

Read everything God has to say in His Word about His love for you. I promise it’ll melt your heart and make you want to honor His love with your life.

“We love him because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19; NKJV).