GOD LOVES YOU

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

I John 4:16

We are valuable in God's sight. The value God put in us is permanent. God does not love us because we serve Him, or what we own or who or what we become. Nothing we can do can ever change that value.
But it is not enough just to know that God loves us, we must believe.
There are women asking their husbands often “Do you love me?” The truth if not believed will not help us. The truth of the matter is that the husband loves the wife, but if the wife does not believe the truth she feels a sense of rejection, low self esteem, although the truth is the husband loves her. Parents and children are the same. There are children who do not believe that their parents love them, although the parents love them passionately and are prepared to give their life for them. It's the knowledge of the truth that sets us free (John 8:32).

Satan works overtime in the area of unbelief. He desires that we go through life feeling insecure about our looks, our personality, and our abilities. He uses hurtful things that people have said, disappointments, rejection, and unfair situations to try to lower our self worth. If we are not careful we will go around blaming ourselves, internalizing every bad thing that happens.

Today God is no more accepting or judging us based on who we are but He accepts and judges us based on the perfect man seated on His right hand. As He is, so are we in this world (I John 4:17).
We should not ask ourselves whether we are acceptable or pleasing to God, but rather is Christ pleasing to the Father?
Can He ever come under condemnation in this world?
As He is so are we in this world.
If we desire to receive love & acceptance from people who mean the most to us like our parents, spouse, mentor or friend, sooner or later we would be disappointed because they can say something that could hurt us because people are human. But our heavenly Father, Creator of the universe, the one who matters the most chose us. He will never disappoint us. We have been handpicked by Him. God says we are his sons and daughters. God says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are anointed, creative, talented.
Whenever we are rejected or hurt - instead of sinking down into self pity we should keep up an attitude of faith thinking that the creator, our Father had chosen us and His plans for us are for good and not for evil, to give us a future and hope.

I John 4:18 - There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.
When we are fearful of punishment or fearful of not having enough, losing someone, fearful of disease - the Bible says perfect love will cast out fear. Once we know how much God loves us, fear will be cast out.

I John 4:19 - We love Him, because He first loved us.
The law is that we should love God with all our heart. The law keeps us under bondage, we feel guilty, a hypocrite, when we see we do not love God as we ought to, with all our heart, with all our soul and all our mind. The law was given to show us our incapability. The law cannot make anyone perfect. It only condemns.
But if we know the love of Jesus Christ and why God gave up His only Son, the best heaven has, to pay for our sins (John 3:16), then we realize that God loves us with all his heart, all His soul and all His mind.
He will not withhold any blessing,(health, financial, etc) from our life. Jesus Christ is an overpayment for all our sins.
Romans 8:32 - He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
Now we know how much God loves Him. As Jesus stepped out after the water baptism at the river Jordan, God spoke “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”. He wanted to make sure that everybody knew that Jesus was not being baptized for the remission of His sins - He was sinless. God loved His son, but gave Him up for us, then how much more would He freely give us all things we ask.
Jesus Christ in the power of knowing He is God's beloved son went forward boldly, fought, conquered and won.
Many young people today want to hear their father's approval. The fathers approval can make us win in life.
When Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, the devil kept up the constant refrain “if you are the Son of God”. He dropped the word “beloved” because temptations cannot be successful when you have the assurance that you are God's beloved.
On the night of the last supper when Jesus said “one of you would betray me”, Peter looked at John who was leaning on Jesus bosom. That is a wonderful picture of depending on His love. The bosom is the place of love and John knew the secret. The Bible calls John the disciple whom Jesus loved. But that phrase appears only in John's own Gospel.
Jesus loved all the 12 disciples intensely, but John knew it and was practicing the love of Jesus for him.

Good things happen to people who know and believe the love God has for them.
Our self esteem will always be on unshakable ground and not be dependent on what people say, or who we are, what our profession is or whether we pass our exam.
God's love for you is unshakable.
The night of the Passover there were 2 kinds of Christians, one is represented by Peter - whose name means “stone”. So in a sense, in this context he represents the law. Peter says to the Lord - if all these should betray you, I will never leave you, and wherever you go I will follow you, even to the end of the earth. Peter represents the kind of Christian who under the law will boast of their love for the Lord..
Now John leaning on Jesus bosom, depending on the Lord's love for him, represents every believer who depends or boasts of the Lord's love for them.
One was under the law and one was under grace. Before the night was over, the one who boasted of his love for the Lord, was found denying Him 3 times and the one who boasted of the Lord's love for him was at the foot of the cross. Of all the disciples he was the only one there, able to minister comfort to the Saviour at his dying moments and it was he who was entrusted the honor of caring for the Lord's mother.
When we boast of the Lord's love for us, we will feel close to God and will always be mightily used by God. When we boast of our love for the Lord we sense a distance from the Lord and our love is doomed to fail.

The reason some young people are rebellious is because they do not have a sense of how precious and valuable they are in God's sight. Our father may reject us, but our Heavenly Father loves us. The Son of God who loved us gave Himself for us, as if we were the only one that ever lived.
We always say we ought to give to the Lord. But honestly the great givers are the great receivers in the Church. The more you are able to receive from the Lord, the more you will be able to give. As Peter said to the lame beggar sitting at the gate of the temple called “Beautiful” - “such as I have I give thee” (Acts 3:6).
The scripture says that the less is blessed by the better. God wants to be the greater, the blesser. He wants us to be the blessed. But we want to take the part of the blesser instead of the blessed. The Son of man has not come to be ministered unto but to minister. The more you take from Him the more He is delighted.
Boast of His love for you. Listen and speak of His love for you, sing songs and declare how much He loves you and enjoy the love and mercy of the Lord. We will start loving God because He first loved us.
Each of us should hold our head high and start seeing ourselves as the masterpiece God created us to be.

Here is an interesting story about 3 trees.
An olive tree, oak tree and pine tree.
Each of these trees had a dream of being used as something great in life. The olive tree dreamt of becoming a finely crafted treasure chest. It wanted to hold gold and silver. One day a wood cutter cut down the olive tree. It was very excited. But over a period of time it realized they were not making it into a treasure chest but into a manger to hold animals. It was so disappointed and felt worthless.
The oak tree which was also cut down dreamt of being used for a huge ship that would carry kings across the oceans. But it realized that it was being used to build a small fishing boat. It too felt worthless.
The pine tree atop a huge mountain dreamt it would always stand tall and remind people of God's glory, but in a split second a bolt of lighting shattered it and it came tumbling down.
All three trees felt worthless and rejected. None of their dreams have come to pass.
But God had other plans. Many years later Mary and Joseph could not find any place and had to stay in a stable where Jesus was born and placed in the manger. It was the olive tree - it wanted to hold gold and precious jewels, but ended up holding the greatest treasure of all times.
Jesus grew up. One day he needed a boat to cross to the other side of the lake. He did not choose a huge fancy ship but a small fishing boat.
It was the oak tree - it wanted to carry Kings across the ocean but ended up carrying the King of Kings.
Few years later, the Roman soldiers went over to the pile of scrap wood where the pine tree lay. They picked it up, cut it into 2 distinct pieces and formed the Cross. Jesus was crucified on that pine tree.
Till today that once discarded pine tree is pointing people to God's love and mercy.
Our dream may not have turned out exactly as we have hoped but we never loose our value. God has a great plan for our life. He can take what was meant to harm us and use it to our advantage.
Let your heavenly Father be the most important person in your life. This day He has rolled away the reproach. As we start seeing ourselves as the masterpiece He created us to be, shaking off the shame, blame and disgrace. He has promised He will take us into our promised land. We should believe and declare that we will live the life of victory He has in store for us.