Word
of Encouragement: Counselor’s Corner
Does God Really Love Me?
If you do not understand God’s love for you, it will
be difficult to grow in relationship with Him and others. Oftentimes, the way
we view our parents is how we view God. If we were abandoned by our parents,
abused by them, or rejected by them; this will cause us to believe God is the
same way. We can attend church for years and never know the Father’s love.
Perhaps you were raised in a home that taught
legalistic religion, basically this means doing good works and following rules
verses having a personal relationship with Christ. We especially view God the
way our earthly fathers were with us. If we were ruled with an “iron-fist” or
shown no grace and mercy by our fathers, we can easily believe God will do the
same with us.
God’s
love is not the same as human love.
You may feel not good enough to receive God’s love. In
your mind, you have sinned too much or done too much for God to embrace you.
Maybe you struggle with believing that God cares about what happens to you, and
you are being punished somehow for your past mistakes.
Believing that God loves you is not necessarily a
feeling but a choice. A choice to believe what God says about you, not what
others have said or done to you. Forgive your parents or caretakers if they did
not represent God to you in a loving way, it could be that they were not shown
how too. God loves you right where you are at, and He is ever working on you.
God is not waiting for you to change until you can accept His love or even receive
Salvation.
Believe
what the Word of God says about His love:
For
God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him
should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
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…Ephesians 2:4-5
But
you, O Lord, are merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in
steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 86:15
Don’t let the enemy lie to you by telling you that because
bad things have happened to you, or that God has not answered your prayers that
He does not love you. You may wonder, “where was God when I was being abused”,
or “ how can He love me if all these horrific things occurred?” I have wrestled
with these questions before, but I realize now that we live in a fallen world
and sometimes tragedy happens.
Does
God care about the suffering that you have gone through?
Yes! This can be hard to digest if you have been severely wounded in life. The
people who were supposed to love and protect you, were the ones who hurt you
the most. God never wanted this type of pain to happen to you. Take some time
to reflect on God’s love is not like human love. God never gives up on us,
He gave His life for us so we could live in eternity, and has great mercy
towards us. God’s love is unconditional and He will never abandon nor forsake
us.
God wants you to know today that He sees you and that
HE LOVES YOU!
What
experiences have kept you from receiving God’s love?