“God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love--not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” 1 John 4:9-10 NLT
When was the last time you let yourself sink into the revelation of His love? Perhaps recently. Perhaps not in a long time. Perhaps never. It takes trust to love and allow oneself to be loved.
Paul wrote that love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Corinthians 13:7 NIV). Our broken human minds and hearts tell us, “It’s not safe”, “I might get hurt”, …insert other doubt or fear here.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.”
Proverbs 3:5 NLT
When I was younger, I tried to make myself believe I could trust the Lord with just a cognitive knowledge of Him. But trust requires deep, heartfelt knowledge. The verse explicitly says “with all your heart”, but I was still depending on my own understanding, even to interpret the verse!
The Hebrew word for “your heart” in this verse, means “inner part, soul”. So how do we trust the Lord with our heart and soul? Seek Him. Ask him to heal your heart and soul. Read his Word and meditate on it.
He gives us free will to choose a relationship with Him, or not. Even all the way back in Eden, he gave the choice to Adam and Eve. It says that “in the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:9)
To choose to eat from the tree of life was, in essence, to choose a relationship with and dependence on God. To choose to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was the equivalent of choosing to be like God and be independent from Him; to sin. He gave Adam and Eve the choice, and He gave us the choice.
The choice we have in Jesus is already dripping with grace because we all sin and don’t deserve to have another chance to choose to be in relationship with Him. We told him we didn’t need or want him. We chose to give our love to other things. And what did he do? He didn’t wait for us to realize that we had doomed ourselves, or for us to ask forgiveness. While we were still running from him, He gave us grace. God demonstrated how far He will go to show his love for us by sacrificing his beloved Son, Jesus to give us eternal life with Him, should we choose it.
Brothers and sisters, he is trustworthy and faithful. He lavishes this real love on us; let us sit down beside Him and lean into His embrace.
“And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Ephesians 3:18-19 NLT
Prayer
Jesus, thank you for your perfect love. Thank you for loving me so much that you gave your life for me, knowing fully every sin I would commit in my lifetime. I repent of my sins and believe in you. Lord show me how to look for you with all my heart. Teach me how to rest in your love and trust you completely. I pray that I will come to know you on a deeper level than ever before and receive your love and healing.
Written by: Brittany Dioszeghy
