Column: Information Station

May 2008

The scene is a weekend retreat and I am the speaker. I ask the group: “”How do you know God loves you?” Someone in the group answers that the Bible tells us so.

“Where?” I ask.

The individual quotes John 3:16.

I look in each face. “Is that passage just a piece of information that you have stored in your brain or do you know it in your heart?”

Some smile their response. Others look perplexed.

Frequently after the discussion, someone admits to me that God’s love has never made the long journey from her head to her heart. “After all, my own mother didn’t love me. That made me feel worthless. Why should I believe that the Creator of the universe could possibly love me?”

The fact is, that God has already demonstrated His love.

He did so when He created the world for every one of us to enjoy personally.

He continually expresses His love to each one of us through others. (See Information Station, April 2008) .

He also inspired men to record His declarations of love in the Bible so every person could tuck them into their souls. Here are three.

(I’ve substituted the personal pronoun “I’ for “we”, since His words of Love do apply to each of us individually.)

“See how very much our heavenly Father loves me, for he allows me to be called his child—think of it—and I really am! (1 John 3:1)

“God showed how much he loved me by sending his only Son into this wicked world to bring to me eternal life through his death” 1 John 4:9).

“I…stand before him covered with his love” Ephesians 3:4b).

During the years God was healing my feelings of abandonment, I memorized declarations of love like these. When I took walks, when I worked in the garden, when I soaked in the bathtub, I spoke them back to Him. Finally, they began to heal my wounds.

They’ll do the same for you.

Scripture from The Living Bible

Archives:

April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007