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So Loved

John 3:16-18 (MSG) This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.

The most quoted verse, John 3:16. We see people holding poster boards with “John 3:16” written at different events. Our athletes have it written on their face or on their clothing somewhere when they go into a game. It is the most well known of all the verse, other than the shortest verse…Jesus wept.

Have you heard something so many times and the meaning of it gets watered down? I think that is how we get about the “So Loved” part of this scripture. The KJV says, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” I was thinking on this verse on how Jesus told us to love. Can we love as big as He did? We often look at the word “so” and say His love is so great, that He gave. What if we see the word “so” as how He loves, not why He loves? Does God really need a why? Love is in His DNA, it is His character and nature. He did not need a reason, so why should we?

This time of year can be really difficult for some people. Think of the mother and father that no longer have the structured family they had in previous years. My thoughts are with an individual who will be spending their first Christmas without their children waking up in their home, because of divorce. Those parents who are empty-nesters for the first time and not all the kids could come home or Christmas. Those that have been home bound since COVID and never got back out to doing life like it was before.

Ephesians 3:16-19 (AMP) May He grant you out of the riches of His glory, to be strengthened and spiritually energized with power through His Spirit in your inner self, [indwelling your innermost being and personality], so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through your faith. And may you, having been [deeply] rooted and [securely] grounded in love, be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints (God’s people) the width and length and height and depth of His love [fully experiencing that amazing, endless love]; and [that you may come] to know [practically, through personal experience] the love of Christ which far surpasses [mere] knowledge [without experience], that you may be filled up [throughout your being] to all the fullness of God [so that you may have the richest experience of God’s presence in your lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself].

“Having been deeply rooted and securely grounded in love,” that is what we must hold onto when those around us do not make us feel loved. I have been deeply rooted and securely grounded in love. Past tense, it has already been done, I do not have to wait for it to be done.

1 John 4:10-11 (AMP)  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [that is, the atoning sacrifice, and the satisfying offering] for our sins [fulfilling God’s requirement for justice against sin and placating His wrath]. Beloved, if God so loved us [in this incredible way], we also ought to love one another.

Beloved, give love regardless of what others have done. God so loved, that He gave first. Be known for your love (unselfishly seeking the best for others). That is what the joy of this season is all about. Remembering that He SO LOVED! God is a giver and so should we be too. Why? Because we have been deeply rooted and securely grounded in love. We have everything we will ever need when Jesus came. When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior our DNA was changed to love. Show your SO LOVED today!

Father, thank you for sending your Son and planting the seed of SO LOVED. You are so wonderful. You are so glorious. You are worthy of our honor and praise. Thank you for deeply rooting me and securely grounding me in your love. I desire to be a giver and thank you that you have given me the tools in your love to give. I will never be alone because of your love. May I be an encouragement to others that do not feel loved during this season. Let me see them. Anoint my tongue and my hands, lead me to minister reconciliation to them, as we are all called to do. In Jesus Name, Amen.

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Why daddy moments?

Psalms 105:4 (AMP) Seek and deeply long for the Lord and His strength (His power, His might); Seek and deeply long for His face and His presence continually.

One of the things I tell people to do is to look for daddy moments from their Heavenly Father. I especially like to do this because my earthly father chose not to be in my life. Yesterday I was talking to our youth about loving those who disappoint us. The ones that will hurt us the most are going to be the ones we expect more from, which can lead to disappointment. We choose to love them anyway.

I was around five when my parents divorced. I remember because my dad pulled me out of kindergarten class to tell me he was not going to see me again. I did see him again, I was ten, then again when I was thirteen. I sent him an invitation for my high school graduation and had my parents save him a seat, he did not show. I sent him an invitation to my wedding, he was not there.

After I had my first child I took a road trip with my husband and we popped in on my dad’s parents so they could meet their great grandson. They fell in love with him, and cried when we left. After we departed they made a phone call and told him to go see his kids. It had been eleven years since he had seen us, my sisters and I. He showed up on my door step within a month of our trip. My husband took him aside, without my knowing, and told him if he hurt me again he would not be welcome.

My dad made monthly trips for nearly a year. He got to celebrate my son’s birthday with us, and holidays we had never spent with him since my parent’s divorce. My youngest sister got married that year and he helped walk her down the aisle with our step father. This was something that I had always wanted, and celebrated with her that she got to experience that.

Then after some time he stopped coming. He wanted us to come see him. He lived six hours away ans still does I guess. I just was not comfortable. I did not want to travel with my young son and stay in his home. I told him he could not expect that of me just because he visited us for a year out of twenty four years of my life. That was the end of that. It has been nearly sixteen years and seven more grand children (one more for me and six between my sisters).

When I was sick as a child I would cry out for my daddy. I know it broke my mother’s heart because he was not going to be able to come to comfort me. Which is why I love my Abba Father. Since I came to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior, that part of my longing was also fulfilled. I have little daddy moments that he truly does care about the little things that I care about too.

When I was sick as a child I would cry out for my daddy.

Psalms 37:4 (TPT) Make God the utmost delight and pleasure of your life, and he will provide for you what you desire the most.

It marvels me to see how much He cares for me. My kids did not grow up without a grandfather. They have two awesome sets of grandparents. My husbands parents and my parents. My step father is their grandpa. They call him grandpa. He has all the benefits that a grandpa should have. He loves my boys and his other grandchildren (even though he did not have any natural children) as if they were his flesh and blood. He has always been patient with us. I was twelve when my mother remarried (How grown do you think I was, it would just been three short years later that I meet my husband on a blind date).

This is why I say look for the daddy moments. I like what this verse says, Matthew 6:30-33 (MSG) If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers – most of which are never seen – don’t you think he’ll attend to you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your eveyday human concerns will be met.

This was straight out of the mouth of His Son, Jesus. He said not worry about missing out. Since saying “yes” to Jesus I have become one of favorite girls. Maybe I had always been, just had not opened my eyes to that yet.

What do these daddy moments look like? They could be a hot pretzel ready when that usually takes twenty minutes because you have to special order them. It could be that you forgot something and He make a way for it to get to you without it being an inconvenience. It can also be that when you are going through something He shows you in His Word that He has already taken care of it. Look for a daddy moment today!

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Do you feel loved?

Ephesians 2:4 (AMP) But God, being (so very) rich in mercy, because of His great and wonderful love with which He loved us.

As I was sitting talking with one of my precious daughters in the Lord, we were talking about the struggles of trusting God the Father. We are both from childhood divorced homes and know the struggles of having our fathers let us down. We talked about marriage and I was reminded of what Christ said about husbands and the church. In reading this, look at it in the perspective of a woman reading it, and how she longs to be loved.

Ephesians 5:25-30 (AMP) Husbands. love your wives (seek the highest good for her and surround her with a caring, unselfish love), just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify the church, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word (of God), so that (in turn) He might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy (set apart for God) and blameless. Even so husbands should and are morally obligated to love their own wives (being in a sense) their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own body, but (instead) he nourishes and protects and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members (parts) of His body.

In the beginning God created all things and he put man in dominion. God saw what He created and saw that it was good. However in Genesis 2:18 we see that it was “not good” that man be alone, some translations say not “beneficial”. He then creates the animals and brings them to the man to name. They were created to be a helper to man, but it still was not a suitable companion for Adam.

Genesis 2:21-23 (AMP) So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and while he slept, He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at the place. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man He made (fashioned, formed) into a woman, and He brought her and presented her to the man. Then Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

Eve was not mistreated, she was not abused by a father or her husband. Yet the enemy went to her for the first attack against mankind. Adam was right next to her.

Eve was not mistreated, she was not abused by a father or her husband.

When I was fifteen I prayed for God to send me my husband. I felt I was all alone. I felt like I had no one who could love me for me. I told God that if He sent me my husband I would serve Him the rest of my life. A month later I met my husband on a blind date. When I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, do you know what God spoke to my heart? He told me that everything I was making John out to be in my life is who He wanted to be in my life. That John could still hurt and wound my heart, but He never would. That is when I surrendered my life to Him.

The hurt and wounds we have from fathers (or some even their husbands) can cloud the ability to see the love that God truly has and desires for us, causing us to have trust issues. This is why Ephesians 5 is there. As I read the Word I see how much love God has for His daughters. We are so very important. We were created to be strong and to endure so much, but we were created with love. We are important. We have value. We are loved!

Yesterday during service, I had a moment, I was looking out during worship and saw how empty it looked in there. Just a few services before it was full and we were wondering what we could do to make room and still be safe because of COVID. I was taken back to when our church took a big hit because of the financial climate ten years ago, attendance and with that giving dropped tremendously. I was thinking, here we go again God, please help me keep my trust on you (considering we are in a building program).

Do you know how much God loves us? In that moment God spoke a Word to my husband just for me. He let me know that what happened ten years ago will not happen again. I have been confessing this whole time, God I know you can do even if… I have been praying for God to show out in a big way, in a way that it would be no way we could take credit for it. I will keep speaking His Word, I will keep preaching His Word, and I will keep going where He tells me to.

On top of that He gave me a little “I love you, daughter” by my pizza delivery guy making a mistake and I got the salad dressing that I had actually wanted but forgot to order. When I remembered I forgot to change the salad dressing it was too late because he was already on his way. He delivered our order without the salad (I like salad with my pizza). He had to go back for it, but I got to ask him for the correct salad dressing. Look at that! He even said when he returned, it just so worked out so that you could get the salad dressing you wanted. Those are what I call daddy moments.

God sees us and wants to do so much in our lives. Keep pressing in. Trust Him in His Word. Give Him all things that have you worried or concerned. He will calm the storm inside of you. Even if, He can still do in a big way! I am trusting Him more and more, it takes surrendering more and more. God I am going to keep doing what you called me to do, and watch what you do with it!

John 15:9 (AMP) I have loved you just as the Father has loved Me; remain in My love (and do not doubt My love for you).