Do I Accept God’s Love?
Am I truly able to accept God’s love for me? Do I truly understand how much He loves me? I struggled with this question a couple of months ago while at a youth retreat. I know I love the Lord, but do I accept and receive all His love for me?
This was a hard question for me to answer. I struggled with it for a while. I felt like I had a wall up and did not fully want to accept all of God’s love for me. It scared me to think about fully accepting it. I felt afraid. Afraid that if I fully accepted His love for me, I would disappoint Him and He would not love me anymore.
What causes someone to have this fear? In my heart I knew accepting all of God’s love for me was the best thing I could do. When we receive and believe that God loves all of us, there is an amazing sense of freedom, joy, and peace that comes with that. Does this fear come from rejection, hurt, or disappointment in past relationships? Is it from the enemy (Satan)? Has someone been telling us that we do not deserve to be truly and completely loved?
For me, I feel like this fear stems from past relationships. Relationships where we either simply grew apart or relationships that ended in hurt, lies, and distrust. Some of these relationships were ones I held close to my heart, and some were just acquaintances. No matter how close I felt to these people, when the relationships ended, or we grew distant, I was left feeling alone, hurt, and like I was just a stepping stone for them to get to their next relationship. This then led to me feeling like letting people in and accepting their love wasn’t worth the time or energy.
I believe these thoughts and feelings are from the enemy (Satan) and they are nothing but lies! The enemy (Satan) wants us to believe these lies so we can’t experience the peace, freedom, and joy that comes when we accept and receive God’s love. He wants us to live in a constant state of fear, sadness, and loneliness.
So, how do we learn to combat the enemy and his lies? We read scripture. We pray. We surrender. We spend time alone with God.
John 3:16-17 tells us:
“For God so loved the world (that’s you and me): He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent His Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through Him.”
Romans 8:38-39 tells us:
“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow- not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below - indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Jesus Christ our Lord.“
God knew we needed a Savior to save us. And He loves us so much that He sent His only Son, who was fully God and fully human. Jesus. Jesus was the only human to walk this earth who was perfect. He did not have a single sin. He was perfect. And yet He loves us so much that He was willing to obey God and die for us so that our sins can be forgiven, and we can spend eternity in Heaven with God. All we need to do is open our hearts accept Jesus into our hearts and surrender everything to Him. And there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love for us. Not our fears. Not our past. Not our sins. God always has and always will love us more than we can ever imagine.
I had to learn to let my walls and guard down and fully accept and receive His love for me. This was not an easy process and took surrender and prayer. I had to humble myself before the Lord, confess that I was feeling afraid, fully lay everything down, and surrender every part of me. Every hurt I was feeling. Every lie I was believing. All the loneliness I was feeling. And I had to do this more than once. It was not just a one-and-done moment. I had to do it multiple times. But once those walls were down, there was no stopping God’s love from falling onto me and me receiving it.
After I surrendered and let down my walls, I was able to receive His love for me. It wrecked me. I felt broken and restored all at the same time. I started ugly crying. But it was the best ugly cry. In that moment my heart felt alive, and I felt more loved than I ever have before. I felt His warmth around me. As I stood there worshiping, I pictured my hands in God’s hands, and He was telling me over and over, “My Child, I love you. My Child, I love you.” I stood there worshiping, crying, and dancing with God while basking in His love for me.
My prayer is that you would be able to completely feel, receive, and accept all of God’s love for you. There is nothing that will satisfy you more. There is nothing that will give you more joy. There is nothing that will bring you more peace. The only thing that will give you true satisfaction is God’s love. He is already knocking at your heart. Will you open the door? Will you let Him in? Will you receive His love? My hope and prayer are that you open your heart and receive His love. There truly is nothing better than fully accepting and receiving all of God’s love for you.
