2016 has been an interesting year but also a year that I have discovered so much of myself.
I have discovered that I need the Lord beyond anyone or anything else. Without the Lord, I am unclean and broken.
I have discovered that I love with all of me. I don’t half anything, and when it comes to love I give all of me.
I have discovered that since I am a child of God, I am amazing.
I have discovered that happiness doesn’t come from anything but what the Lord gives me.
I have discovered that I love the people that surround me and that is when I am happiest.
I have discovered that I don’t get to love every person that I want to but I will always love them.
I have discovered a part of me that is strong and wise that I never knew before.
Never forget how much the Lord loves you because he is always there to love you. We are children of God and he loves steadfast.
There are days when I have questioned if God loves me the way that people here on this earth love and then he continues to remind me how wrong that statement is. Recently, God revealed to me Lamentations 3:22-23, "Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."
If you are feeling like God doesn't love you or like you don't deserve God's love, I hope these verses help you get through the pain you are feeling. Remember, that there is pain in this world but joy when we are in heaven.
God’s Shows His Love Through Jesus Christ (who he sent for you and me...WOW!)
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
Romans 5:8 "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God. who loved me and gave himself for me."
Ephesians 2:4-5 "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved."
1 John 4:9-11 "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."
Romans 8:37-39 "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Ephesians 2:4-5 "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved..."
Romans 8:35 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?”
God Loves and Cares For Us
Zephaniah 3:17 "The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing."
1 John 4:7-8 "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love."
1 Peter 5:6-7 "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."
Job 34:19 "Who shows no partiality to princes, nor regards the rich more than the poor, for they are all the work of his hands?"
Psalm 86:15 "But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness."
1 John 3:1 "See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him."
Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
What does God say about Love?
Deuteronomy 7:9 "Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations."
Proverbs 8:17 "I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me."
Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope."
John 13:34-35 "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Respond To God’s Love Through Thankfulness
Psalm 136:26 "Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever."
Romans 5:2-5 "Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
Colossians 2:6-7 "Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude."
Hebrews 12:28-29 "Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe; for our God is a consuming fire."
1 Peter 5:6-7 "Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."