He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

 God does not want you live in doubt concerning His love. 

God is not playing games with you! God is not the author of confusion. God does not want you to live in doubt concerning His love. God’s love is sure, steadfast, it cost Him His Son. He desires you know Him, the God of love and understand you are loved by Him! God’s love for you is not in installments, or a “maybe He does, maybe He doesn’t,” love you or me. The doubts of uncertainty that can flood our thinking, the emotional roller coaster, of does He love me or not. The exhaustion of gauging His love for us through the lens of circumstances, “feelings” and our own performance. Seeking to live up to a “standard” we or others  have invented which is outside of the accurate interpretation of Scripture and we are “weary” from it all.

“He loves me, He loves me not.” Like the old game kids played when we were younger with the petals of a flower. You picked a petal off a flowed and say, if you were a young girl, “He loves me” and throw away that petal, and then go to the next petal and pick off the flower and say, “He loves me not,” and the last petal picked off gave you the answer depending on which statement you ended up with to determine if you were loved or not! The uncertainty of it all.

Sometimes we live as though God plays that game with us and when we sin we forfeit His love. We can hurt Him “grieve” Him which is a love word really, the Scripture says in Ephesians 4, but that is only because you can only hurt the One who loves you. But we can never break, sever His love for us.

Sometimes we Doubt God’s Love. We tend to view life’s circumstances and interpret them concerning God’s attitude towards us, whether He loves us or doesn’t. We conclude that if we are encountering difficulties, suffering, and pressures as a sign He doesn’t love us. We tend to live by our feelings rather than faith in the Lord. Paul said “the life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

The love of Christ was a stabilizing factor in Paul’s life. Not only a stabilizing factor but his motivation to trust the Lord Jesus. The love of Christ caused him to live by faith in Him. Love motivated him to trust. You trust the one who loves you, even on a human level. The problem is no one on a human level loves you all the time, unconditionally, with pure motives. But the love of Christ demonstrated upon the cross caused Paul to live by faith in Jesus who loved him all the way to the cross.

Jesus who gave up His life voluntarily. Jesus who upon the cross bore the sins of Paul. Paul never got over the fact- Jesus Christ loved him! He focused on the Person of Christ. He focused on the Work of Christ. He focused on the love of Christ…for him….Jesus had hung on that cross for him! The love of Christ was an historical fact. The love of Christ was personal! Paul knew suffering and suffering did not negate the love of God for Paul but in the sufferings Paul knew He was loved by Him who had suffered for him on that cruel, scandalous, glorious cross!

WHO DECIDES WHETHER HE LOVES YOU OR NOT? YOUR EVER CHANGING FEELINGS?
THE WHISPERS OF AN EVIL FOE?
CIRCUMSTANCES THAT ARE UNPLEASANT? OR THE CROSS OF CHRIST AND THE WORD OF GOD?
Circumstances did not dictate to Paul whether God loved him, the demonstration of the life of Christ given up for him on the cross spoke volumes of how much he was loved!.

Consider aspects of God’s love for you….

1. He loves you INTENSELY

This is what the word “great” means in Eph 2:4; it speaks of “Intensity”- God intensely loves you. Paul wrote to people who were weary and ready to give up, of the love of Christ in their salvation….Ephesians 2:4″ But because of his GREAT love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” His love never “cools” towards you. He never withdraws His love, even when He disciplines, trains us, it is done in love. He loves you intensely as is demonstrating by Him coming to live among people and walk a sinless life and be crucified for the sins of others. He had no sin, yet, He took our place, became our sin -bearer, our Substitute and bore the wrath of God that should have been poured out on us. Why did He do this? Because He GREATLY LOVES …YOU!

Not that you and I are “lovable” in ourselves, for we are sinners, who have all failed and fallen short in living for God’s glory.. Many of us were presented a “god” who had no interest in us except to punish us for no other reason than that was who “he” was. But The Lord Jesus, God in flesh, came to show us the Father, God does punish sin. God is right when He does so. But God is not some twisted bitter Being. Anyone who looks at the Gospels seeing the life of the Lord Jesus who came to “…show us the Father,” sees His compassion for the hurting. His love for sinners. His disdain for the “religious” who put “religious” loads on people that cause them to be weary and heavy laden. Jesus is not like that. His motivation, to be our Substitute and sin bearer was to satisfy the law’s demands. For the Scripture says, “the soul that sins shall die.” He died for us that we should not die in our sins!

The law is without grace. It is without mercy. The Law required penalty for sin and Jesus paid it all and we see His love is “great”-“Intense towards us, that burns pure and brilliant towards us – that through the merits of Jesus Christ we should be made right with God! The Cross of Christ speaks of the depths God dealt with sin.

The Cross shows us the depth of God’s love for us…for you, to rescue us from sins penalty to a right standing with Him and adopted into His family. God’s motivation in salvation is His love. Settle it according to the Word of God. God intensely loves you. It is not based on your performance, but His. It is not based on your ever changing feelings, but in the face of the finished work of Jesus Christ on that cross that on the third day He was raised from the dead because God accepted His sacrifice on your behalf. God INTENSELY LOVES YOU, not some of the time but all of the time. His is an eternal love. His is an intense love for you.

2. He loves you CONTINUALLY

Rev 1:5: “To Him who loves us…”(grammatically means “continuous”) His Love is continuous. It is an unending love which cannot be broken. It is not an on again off again type of Love. But an unending, unbreakable, eternal love for you. Nothing can separate you from His continual love. He has set His love upon you. John was banished to the Isle of Patmos when he wrote these words. “To Him who loves us, and has released {freed} us from our sins…” It is a present tense love. It is a releasing love. It frees from the penalty of sin. God has “cancelled” all of our sin. The word “cancelled” means “to erase” completely our record of sin against us through the blood of the cross, such is the love of God. It frees us from the penalty of sin and wipes the slate clean, erased, never again to be held against us. John writes of a moment by moment love that goes all the way to eternity with Jesus. John on the isle, in the place of suffering, the Lord met him with Himself. John in the difficult place suffering for the Word of God and his association, identification with the Lord Jesus did not doubt the love of Christ but in this hard place, this unfair place, this place of suffering he knew he was loved continuously as are all followers of the Lord Jesus… and that includes…. you! John’s response to such love was to declare, “To Him be the glory forever and ever.” You are loved intensely. You are loved continuously.

3. He wants you to know… EXPERIENTIALLY

Paul prayed for those who were “Weary”-in Ephesians 3:13. The word “weary” speaks of being “exhausted, discouraged, losing heart and ready to give up. “He wants the “weary” one to experientially know He loves them. He will do something to make them realize right where they are, He loves them- He loves YOU! He has not forgotten you, cannot forget you, will not forget you because He is intensely in love with you with an intensity that does not waver BASED UPON YOUR PERFORMANCE OR LACK OF IT, YOUR COMMITMENT, OR LACK, YOUR FAILURES, SIN , IT IS BASED ON THE SINLESS PERFORMANCE OF THE LORD JESUS ON YOUR BEHALF! He prays that they would be inwardly strengthened, that Christ would be at home in their hearts and that they would rooted, grounded in love and comprehend and know experientially the love of Christ. Jesus has already demonstrated the commitment of His intense love for you on the cross. He wants them to be rooted in His love. He wants them to “know,” the word means to know personally, experientially the love of Christ!

He continuously loves you, present tense, and will do something to again express to you in a real way, right in the midst of your weariness,” I LOVE YOU,” to encourage you and ASSURE you, “I LOVE YOU!”

Whatever is going on in your life, be assured from His Word that you are INTENSELY, IRREVOCABLY, CONTINUOUSLY  LOVED BY God and He will show you once again so you will be reminded and know, EXPERIENTIALLY you are loved by God- The CROSS demonstrates it! God demonstrated His love towards us while we were yet sinners Christ died for us!

4. He Wants You To Know- EVIDENTIALLY. LOVES THE CROSS OF CHRIST IS THE FACT OF GOD’S LOVE FOR… YOU!

“But God demonstrated His love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8

Two of my favorites words, “But God….” while Paul writes in Romans 5 the true condition of all people apart from Christ, they are helpless, enemies, ungodly, sinners. This is their state before God. Then we read… the good news, “BUT GOD….”

Does God love you? Look to the cross. When doubts would seek to flood your mind. Ask yourself the question,” Where is the ‘But’?”  Does the thought go something like this, “God loves others… But… God could never love you?” The evil one seeks to torment you, cast doubts concerning the character of God and leave you in despair, “But God….”- He has declared on Calvary and in His Word I love you! End any and all sentences with,  ” But God!”FOCUS ON THE FACT- THE CROSS OF JESUS CHRIST.

 

WHY DO WE DOUBT GOD LOVES US?

WE BELIEVE A LIE – Never believe the lie which comes to your mind as a fiery dart from the evil one. WE base our acceptance by God based on “our performance” not His. This is works salvation. No, not that we work to be saved but we believe we must work to MAINTAIN His love!

OUR THINKING IS NOT THROUGH THE LENS OF SCRIPTURE – We need to renew own conscience which needs to be renewed with His truth. Rom 12:2 {Look again at the verses God shares with us which I have written above for you}.

WE BASE OUR THINKING ON OUR “FEELINGS” RATHER THAN TRUTH, and so we live emotional roller coaster lives basing our views on what we “FEEL” as the ultimate authority rather than the Scriptures and as Jesus says, “IT IS WRITTEN.”
We end up “playing,” though we may not use the words, nevertheless, we emotionally play the game – ” He loves me, He loves me not,” as though God is inconsistent, uncaring, untrustworthy, forever changing in His love for you, as though He can’t decide. Your indecisiveness does not negate His decisive message of the cross delivered on the cross for you! Which He is not! “I the LORD do not change.”- Mal 3:6. Without thinking, to choose to embrace the lie, by choosing to reject the truth, is to attack the character and integrity and work of God through Jesus Christ!

It’s time to give up the “roller coaster,” ride of emotions, basing our view of God’s love through lies, unbelief childish games, as though God’s love is left to a happenstance of picking petals. God cemented His love by sending His Son to live, die and He arose again for you. His Word conforms it. His Spirit assures us. His cross never changes. Trust Him. We play with our minds of, “He loves me, He loves me not,” and instead choose to believe and rest in the TRUTH of GOD’S INTENSE, CONTINUOUS, LOVE FOR YOU!

God Loves you Intensely – Eph 2:4
God loves you Continuously – Rev 1:5
God wants you to Experientially know His love for you – in the midst of your weariness – Eph 3:12-21
DO YOU PLAY, “HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT?” There is no need to – God doesn’t play games. He didn’t play games with His Son by sending Him to a cruel cross and He did that for you. THE CROSS OF CHRIST LIKE A MEGAPHONE SHOUTS THE LOVE OF GOD…. FOR…. YOU!

John was banished to the Isle of Patmos when he wrote “To Him who {continually loves us, and has freed us from our sin, to Him be the glory. “-{ Rev 1:5.} Paul was in Prison when he penned, the words in Ephesians. Circumstances did not dictate. THE LOVE OF GOD- THE LOVE OF JESUS CHRIST DICTATED THE TRUTH TO THEM- and to you, “I LOVE YOU!”

THINKING TIME CHANGE

Renew your mind with God’s Unchanging truth to you; Why not write down these verses on a 3 by 5 card, carry in your purse, or wallet and when you have time, take and look at it. For the next three weeks you could take one verse a week to meditate and pray on the truth and praise Him for it.

Share the truth with some other soul that is battered by the evil one who plays the “He loves me, He loves me not,” game of torment.

Some people say, “Oh, I can’t memorize!” Not so, you remember PAY DAY, you remember where you live, you remember important things….! Oops, that may be the problem….is His Word important enough to you, to me, and to be able to serve others who are being played by the evil one and a conscience that needs to be renewed, living more by “feelings” as the final authority rather than the Word of God, and so we play, they play, “He loves me, He loves me not,”- How hurtful that has to be to Him who loves us Intensely, Continuously, and wants us to comprehend and experientially know once again-“I LOVE YOU!”

YOU ARE THIS MOMENT, “THE BELOVED OF GOD!” – In Romans 1:7 you are called “The BELOVED of God.” This is who He calls you, His Beloved! It is a fact, it had nothing to do with you but everything to do with God who DECLARES it so, based on His Acceptance of you, through His Beloved Son -Eph 1:6

THANK GOD for His intense, continuous, knowable love for you, today all as a result of Jesus Christ! He does not forget those He loves and that is … you!  He knows where you are, He knows your circumstances, your weariness, ready to give up, perhaps even done so, but this does not change His love for you!

He has not forgotten you. He loves you. Consider the Cross which testifies- Wondrous, scandalous cross to testify “I love you!”

TIME TO CHOOSE GOD’S WORD, God’s son, as your ultimate authority, in regards God’s love for you! The assurance of scripture, irrespective of circumstances, pleasant, or unpleasant, feelings, is the cross of Christ, the word of truth testifies…

“… HE LOVES ME!”