A Revelation of God's Love

     God's love cannot be learned.  You can be taught about God's love for an entire lifetime and never really, truly know it.  God's love must be experienced to be known.  It must be revealed by Him and Him alone.  It turns out, I have spent most of my life hearing about God's love, and even sharing about it, but not experiencing it.  This doesn't mean it wasn't there, of course.  God has always loved me (and you) as much when we were born as He does now, and at every point in between.  You all know this because you have heard it many times.  But have you ever had a revelation of God's love?  A revelation of God's love comes from God, not a teacher or a pastor or yourself.  It is too great to put into words.  I don't think I ever realized that.  I would acknowledge God's love but then remind myself not to dwell on it, therefore ignoring His "wrath" or judgment. I am telling you right now to DWELL ON IT.  Soak it up, take it in, accept it, experience it.  This is what He wants for you.  Once God's love is revealed, you will not go away unchanged.
     Ephesians 3:17-19 says, "And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."         
    I am not writing as an expert about this by any means, but I pray everyday for God to reveal His great love for me even more and I have gotten a glimpse of it this past week.  There have been a few things that have held me back from ever truly experiencing God's love, and God revealed one of them to me this week.  For me, in order to enjoy my down time or be lazy, I feel like I have to earn it.  I think there are a lot of us out there like this.  If I work hard, stay busy, and be productive, I feel okay about taking a few hours to just relax and turn off my brain.  But if I get to a point where I am being lazy all the time and not doing anything productive, I feel sad and I do not enjoy it anymore! There is nothing wrong with being this way, in my opinion.  In fact, I'm sure it's a good quality! But this mentality slipped into how I view God's love for me.  That same principle does not apply to the rest we have in God's love.  We do not need to be "religiously productive", meaning in prayer often, serving others, and generally staying away from sinful things, before we can enjoy His extravagant love! His love never changes! And His love is not small.  It is incomprehensibly big.  He loves the most Godly person you know just as much as He loves you and the prisoners in jail.  What an awesome revelation this is! Think of it this way: if we had to have our ducks in a row before God bestowed love on us, that would totally discount and limit His great love.  Is His love not big enough and awesome enough to reach us as we already are?
     God loves you as you are, not as you should be.
     Here is a humbling thought that I heard this week in class: we can only have as much affection and passion for God as we realize He has for us. What a powerful statement! It makes me yearn to experience His love so badly, because I want to better love Him.  1 John 4:19- "We love because He first loved us".
     God so badly wants to reveal His love for us.  He wants us to experience all the good things He has for us.  He is a Father waiting to lavish (Ephesians 1:8) His children in love: not just a dose, not just enough to keep us going, but a complete overflowing of it.  God's love is not a general gift that looks the same to every person.  He knows how to love each of us as individuals. God loves us each the same amount, but He loves us differently.  He has given us each different personalities that desire different things.  If God decided to show His love  for me one day through a Starbucks barista offering me a free latte, I would feel extremely grateful and joyful, but if He did the same for one of my brothers, I'm not so sure they would experience the same amount of joy.  How awesome is it that God knows you and me well enough to bless us in specific ways?! It gets me pumped! Not for the specific blessings, but for the opportunity to experience His love!
     I want to challenge each of you this week to ask God to reveal His love for you.  He will do it.  Be patient, chill out, don't stress, just wait for Him and He will give you a revelation of His love.  I pray this for all of you and for myself!