God's Love

This week I am listening to Mark Darling's series about God's Love. This topic is something that I have continually struggled with since becoming a Christian. I know with my mind that God loves me, but I have a hard time with it in my heart. Especially when battling sin and temptation, I am prone to beat myself up or even "punish" myself for my wrongs.

Mark discussed 1 John 4:16 and it says that "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him." Therefore, if God is love than 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 can be read as.....

"God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, God does not boast, God is not proud. God is not rude, God is not self-seeking, God is not easily angered, God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but He rejoices with the truth. God always protects, God always trusts, God always hopes, God always perseveres. God never fails."

Why do I doubt that God loves me when he is all of those things?

Here is the truth: God never gets upset or tired of me - regardless of my sin! When God sent Jesus Christ to the Cross, His blood paid for it all! Even God himself cannot condemn me for my own sin!!

Verse of the Day:
Romans 8:31-38 "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

As it is written: 'For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Bonus Verse of the Day:
Zephaniah 3:17 " The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."