Does God Love Us?

"I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick" (Ezekiel 34:16). Since the fall of man, the Lord God has been devising new ways of having back the rich and personal relationship He had with him. From the onset, God created man to enjoy His life (the God kind of life). After God had created the world, He created man by breathing His very own life into man. Adam and Eve were made to enjoy all that God had created before them. There was no lack and no shortage, as well as no consciousness of worry or fear. They actually lived a rich life; every day, they walked in the life of God. Today, we can live in a greater measure of the life that Adam and Eve enjoyed when they were still in the Garden of Eden, simply because of Jesus' redemptive work in our lives.

Jesus stated, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10). God has made everything you need available and you even don't have to pray about them. I love what Pastor Smith Wigglesworth said: "If a thing is in the Bible it is so; it is not even to be prayed about; it is to be received and acted upon. Inactivity of faith is a robber which steals blessing." God loves you no matter what and I would like you to take note that it's what you believe that works for you. Bible says "it will be done just as you believe it would" (Matthew 8:13). This is why it pays to know the Word of God. Spend time in meditating upon the Word of God and be so soaked with it, be so filled with it that you yourself are a living epistle, known and read of all men. As you know who you are in Christ and His accomplishments in your stead, your life will take on a new look, the way you act and talk will change!

The key to a life of happiness and overflow with God's goodness and power is in our belief. Our belief forms the basis of the way we view our world. It dictates our actions and behaviour. That's why I stated the fact that it actually changes everything about you. Jesus told His Father (God): "And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one" (John 17:22). The Greek work for "glory" is "doxa" which when translated into English also means splendour, brightness, magnificence, excellence, preeminence, dignity, grace, majesty (a thing belonging to God, a thing belonging to Christ). Majesty is the absolutely perfect inward or personal Excellency of Christ; the majesty of that condition with God the Father in heaven to which Christ was raised after He had achieved His work on earth. These are what Jesus told His Father He has given to believers. There's nothing you can do that can make God love you less.

We find out grace is included in glory as we define it from the Greek perspective. The Greek word for "grace" is "caris." Its basic idea is simply "non-meritorious or unearned favor, an unearned gift, a favor or blessings bestowed as a gift, freely and never as merit for work performed." The fact is that our belief about who God is, who we are and His calling on our lives will determine what we will accomplish in our lifetime. If we're full of guilt, how can we boldly stand before God? You've got to believe that God loves you for God is love (1 John 4:8). If we want to access the power and resources of God we have to believe that God loves us. God doesn't want us say things contrary to His Word and that's why Bible says "A man shall eat good by the fruit of his mouth... he who guards his mouth preserves his life, but he who opens wide his lips shall have destruction" (Proverbs 13:2-3). God loved us when we were still sinners and He loves us at times when we hate ourselves and we are disappointed with ourselves.

Listen, nothing we do can make God love us less. Bible says God is love, which means His nature is love! He doesn't have love as a character but He is love personified. Sometimes we think that God loves other people than He loves us but this is not the case. If you're in the scriptures you will know that this is not true. Let's examine this from the scriptures below: "Then Peter began to speak: "Now I understand that God shows no partiality" (Acts 10:34. "For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes (Deuteronomy 10:17). "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" (Numbers 23:19). "who shows no partiality to princes and does not favor the rich over the poor, for they are all the work of his hands?" (Job 34:19).

"Now let the fear of the LORD be upon you. Judge carefully, for with the LORD our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery" (2 Chronicles 19:7). "He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:9). "For God does not show favoritism" (Romans 2:11). "As for those who seemed to be important - whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not judge by external appearance - those men added nothing to my message" (Galatians 2:6). "And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him" (Ephesians 6:9). "Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear" (1 Peter 1:17). There is no one that ever lived, that are living and that will be born in this world that God will love more than you.

God does not love Abraham, Moses, Enoch, David, Elijah, Daniel, Peter, John, and Apostle Paul etc. more than you. He loves us all the same, no partiality! Our major problem is that the moment we sin we draw back from God and we believe that God does not love us anymore. We are still being perfected and have not reached perfection yet. The Apostle Paul said: "But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known" (1 Corinthians 13:10, 12). He says we see through a dark glass. When true perfection is come, our mortal flesh shall be changed! "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory" (2 Corinthians 15:52-54). "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2). So we are looking forward to the time where we shall be completely changed; That Great Day. The Apostle Paul says we shall see Him as He is when He appears. When we do wrong, we believe that God will not hear us anymore. God does not hear us on the basis of our performance; it is according to our faith. Nothing we do will make God love us less.

"...I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). When you sin, repent and ask God for forgiveness, and immediately you will have access to God and His promises. As a matter of fact all that you need to have access to the blessings of God is to be a human being and have faith. I know who I am! Our belief about the goodness and love of God will help us focus on the fact that God is moved to bless us because of His great love for us and not because of our own performance. Remember we can never be righteous by our works. "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away" (Isaiah 64:6).

Christ Jesus obeyed God to the point of death. When He died we died with Him, when He was buried we were buried with Him, When He was raised back from the dead we were raised with Him. That's why we say that we're born again; a new specie, a new kind. "Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever" (1 Peter 1:23). We're in Christ now and we're hidden in Him. That's why God can never out love us because we stand before Him as though we were Christ. We do not have to earn God's love. Many people focus so much on their weaknesses that they talk themselves out of God's blessings. They have a thousand reasons why God will not bless them. The basis with which God blesses us is because of His love for us and not because of our performances. Romans 8:32 puts it beautifully, "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"

God loves us so much that He gave His best to us when we were still sinners. "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). "For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit" (1 Peter 3:18). God gave us His very best because of His love nature; He did not withhold His best, His highest sacrifice from us but offered Him up to be justified in our place. Think about it: if God did not withhold His best from us, will He withhold anything else from us? Absolutely No, NEVER! "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). Paul says if God is for us, which means that God is for us and He'll forever be for us. He's never going to go against us. The Psalmist said, "Then my enemies will turn back when I call for help. By this I will know that God is for me" (Psalm 56:9).

"The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" (Psalm 118:6). There's this thing I love about the Psalmist: "God is my hope in totality! If God wouldn't help then no one would; if God is there nothing can overcome me; God is always for me," that's how the Psalmist thought. This is just powerful. One of the keys to live a life filled with God's overflow and plenty is the belief that God is for you and not against you. Sometimes people just turn away from God and begin to lose confidence in Him for what they did. After all God is there to forgive you. Many people believe because they struggle with weaknesses or with habitual sin, God is out there to punish them. God is not against you, He is for you. That's the Good News we preach to the world! God wants to help you overcome temptations in your life; He is not out there to punish you when you fall. The devil has always been rebellious to God and He (God) is against the devil and He will use your own mistakes against the devil.

When we come to the realization, when we believe that God is for us and not against us, it will causes us to realise that it does not matter the situation we find ourselves in, God is on our side and He is working on our behalf. "For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows" (2 Corinthians 1:5). That means you and I will never face trials and problems alone. The devil will always bring problems and challenges our way but Bible let's us know that comfort flows from Christ to us as we endure them. "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (2 Corinthians 12:9). There are times when things go wrong as a result of what we have done. When we repent and make right with God, we do not have to face our mess on our own.

The Apostle Paul says that instead of weeping and wailing over his problems, he will glorify God in them so that God's power will rest upon him. God will still be on our side and He helps us to clean up the mess. God is on our side today, tomorrow and for all eternity and nothing can change that! God wants to do you good in every aspect of your life: health, finance, business, education etc. David upon realizing how good God was, said in Psalm 23:5-6: "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life..." Preparest is a present continuous tense of the verb prepare. That means there's not going to be a cessation of the goodness of the Lord in His life. Can you think like this? James 1:17 says "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning."

I love the song by Don Moen titled, "God is good all the time." He is good indeed! God is good not for some time but ALL the time! Sometimes you blame God for sickness, poverty, lack, sorrow etc. but we find out here that its only good things that come from God and nothing else. If you understand that God is good all the time and that the devil is bad all the time, you will stop blaming God for the things that the devil placed upon you. If you understand that God is good all the time you will never believe that sickness, lack, insecurity or poverty is God's will for mankind. By the death of Jesus, we were healed Spirit, Soul and Body. This is a fact underlined! Not only that, we were also made heirs to the Abrahamic blessing, the mega-wealth blessing! This is what you've got to do: Every day of your life expect to see God's goodness in your life; expect to see His goodness wherever you go.

Sometimes we want to find out how truly and really good God is. I tell you, God being good is such a big thing and you should be rejoicing everything of your life that your Heavenly Father is that good. It means that God is generous and that He is generous towards us. God can bless you above your imagination because He owns everything. "For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains: and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof" (Psalm 50:10-12). "The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the LORD of hosts" (Haggai 2:8). If these things belong to your Father, then you're the heir to them. Bible says we're joint-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17). Jesus said "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" (Matthew 7:11).

Think about it: If we who were born in sin know how to give generously to our children, how much more does God, our heavenly Father who is perfect in love and goodness, know how to bless His children that He loves much more than what an earthly Father can love his children. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11). God is good therefore He has plans for our welfare and blessing. He has no plans for calamity in our lives. Joseph said to his brothers, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives" (Genesis 50:20). The enemy has plans for calamity in our lives, but as we submit to God, whatever the enemy intended for bad, God will work for the good. Look for God's opportunity in every difficulty.

Now I ask, what are your dreams? No matter where you are in life, I want to tell you that "with God all things are possible" (Luke 1:37, 18:27; Matthew 19:27). You have to believe that God is still a miracle working God and that He wants to do miracles for you and through you. "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" (Hebrew 13:8). You have to believe that with God all things are possible, not in the past and not in the future, but in the present. I love what God told Moses "...I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'" Exodus 13:4. God confirms it here that He is the "I am;" the same miracle-working God. "I AM WHO I AM!" I love this!

As a Christian, walking in the supernatural should be normal for you. Miracles should be normal for us. Its sad many jump from one local assembly to the other looking for miracles while they're to follow us instead. Jesus said signs and wonders shall follow us; we're not supposed to look out for them! Spend some time to reflect on who Christ Jesus has made you to God. I tell you, it's big! God loves you no matter what - just believe it, accept it and confess it until it becomes a part of you.

God bless you!