Most of us don’t know how to have a true love relationship because most of our lives we’ve experience every other emotion BUT love.

We come into the church and we hear this beautiful story about a God that loves us so much that He sent His son to suffer many things and then die for us.  We can’t really comprehend that type of love, it’s almost unbelievable!

John 3:16 tells us, ““For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Who really sacrifices in such a way for love?  God does!  And it’s not just a story, it’s the truth!  You say, I’ve never felt this type of love.  Does it really exist?  Yes, it does.  If you really pay attention, you can see and feel Gods love all around you.  It’s in the wind, listen as the breeze blows…you can almost hear the whisper of Gods voice in the wind.  It’s refreshing…it satisfies the soul…it brings comfort.  We see Gods love in all the earth through His creation.  How the birds honor Him in praise early each morning.  It’s quite beautiful really if you take a moment to be still and take it all in.  God’s love can be felt, heard and seen in all creation!

But how do you really experience this love personally for yourself?  It will manifest itself if you desire it.  

1 John 4:9-12 tells us, “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

How awesome is that!  And His Word also tells us that He will abide or dwell in us.  We can experience His love at all times, in every situation, never being alone.  1 John 4:16 says, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”  

Ephesians 3:17-19 tells us, “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Whoa!!!  What love!  The dwelling of Christ in our hearts will give us the unsurpassed knowledge of His love.  This is where the broken need to be found.  We must be grounded and rooted in God because God is love!

I’ve shared many of my testimonies about my brokenness, coming from a life riddled with abandonment, hurt, pain, deception, and anger.  But God!!  You don’t find Him…He draws you!!  God drew me in with His love.  I didn’t know love, I didn’t know how to give love, I didn’t know how to accept love.  God showed me how to have every area in my life that was broken to be replaced with His love!  Glory to God! 

We don’t need to have it all figured out family!  We only have to be willing and open to receive God and He will do all the work in you!  Some may have been like me, struggling with indecision because I was lost.  We are all lost at one point.  

Matthew 18:12-14 says, ““If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? 13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away! 14 In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father’s will that even one of these little ones should perish.”

Jesus is our Shepard.  He is seeking us!  Even in our stubbornness and you say I don’t want to be found.  I’m happy with my life, I don’t need this.  Trust me, that will change…just keep on living.  Jesus wants to love you and He will love you despite your stubbornness!  But seriously, I know there are many hurting people in the world, I was one of them.  God’s love is the answer!  

Revelation 21:4 tells us, “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Now yes, the main context of this scripture is focusing on when we reach heaven but this scripture can also be used for comfort.  Comfort in knowing that when we hand our sorrows…our pains…our hurts..our past situations over to God and we give ourselves to Him with a complete YES!  All the former things of yesterday…of an hour ago….these former things are remembered no more in Gods sight.

Family, let Him touch you this morning.  Be still in His presence today and experience His love.  Let God heal you and make you whole in Him!

Meditation verse – Psalm 139 (Amplified translation)

1 O Lord, you have searched me [thoroughly] and have known me. 2 You know my downsitting and my uprising; You understand my thought afar off. 3 You sift and search out my path and my lying down, and You are acquainted with all my ways. 4 For there is not a word in my tongue [still unuttered], but, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. 5 You have beset me and shut me in—behind and before, and You have laid Your hand upon me. 6 Your [infinite] knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high above me, I cannot reach it. 7 Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend up into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the place of the dead), behold, You are there. 9 If I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 Even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me and the night shall be [the only] light about me, 12 Even the darkness hides nothing from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You. 13 For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well. 15 My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret [and] intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depths of the earth [a region of darkness and mystery]. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them. 17 How precious and weighty also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awoke, [could I count to the end] I would still be with You. 19 If You would [only] slay the wicked, O God, and the men of blood depart from me— 20 Who speak against You wickedly, Your enemies who take Your name in vain! 21 Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You? And am I not grieved and do I not loathe those who rise up against You? 22 I hate them with perfect hatred; they have become my enemies. 23 Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Blessings!!

Keishana