I
felt unlovable all through my childhood. I would wish on the first star every
night that I could be a "good girl", so my mommy and daddy would love
me. So, when I turned 18 and chose to believe in Jesus as my Savior, I thought
I had to earn His love too.
I
made a list of every Biblical mandate that I could find and attempted to obey
that list to the letter of the law. It took me ten years to learn that I could
not earn God's love. Jesus already loved me enough to take the penalty of my
sins to Calvary's cross, and there is no greater love than that (John 15:13).
John,
the apostle, was so confident that God loved him, that he often referred to
himself in his gospels as, "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John
13:23). We would do well to follow his example, and to remind our self that God
feels the same way about us.
Have
you ever looked into your eyes in the mirror? The eyes are the window of the
soul. They reflect the thoughts in our mind, the intent of our heart, and the
feelings of our soul (Matthew 6:22-23). When I first did this exercise, I could
not look into my own eyes.
I
had shame-based thinking, because I believed Satan's lies that I would never be
good enough for God to love me. The wounds of my past, buried deep within my
subconscious mind, tormented my soul. It took weeks of attempting to look into
my own eyes before I could actually force myself to do it.
I
felt so unlovable, so vulnerable, so damaged and so full of shame without any
known reason for it. Slowly, God showed me the root of all of these negative
emotions, and the reason that I believed these lies. After months of this
healing process, I was able to look into my eyes and really mean it when I told
myself, "God loves you, and so do I."
Prayer:
Father
God, thank You for teaching us how to access Your healing Truth, and to put the
devil to flight away from us (Matthew 10:28; James 4:7-10; Matthew 16:26). You
created our soul - our thoughts, feelings and choices, and You restore our soul
from the wounds of life (Genesis 2:7; Psalm 23:3; 1 Thessalonians 5:23). Thank
You for loving us so much. We love You with our whole heart, soul and mind (Matthew
22:37).
We
find help for our soul in You (Psalm 3:2). We prosper and are in health on this
earth in proportion to the prosperity of our soul (3 John 1:2). A troubled soul
will cause physical illness in our body; but You will heal us, as we totally submit
our body, soul and spirit to You. We live for Your glory, and we joyfully subject
our will to Your plans for our life.
Thought
for the Day:
The
Lord loves His children with an everlasting love; we do not deserve it, we do
not earn it, we simply receive it as the free gift that it is, from our God who
abundantly loves us.
-
John 3:16-17; Romans 5:8, 6:23; Jeremiah 31:3; Ephesians 2:4-5; 1 John 4:9-11;
Psalm 86:15
