October 12, 2010

Chapter 3....Crazy Love:
How many times have we heard, said, sang, or written "God loves us". The simplest truth that is drilled into us as a child, but one that, even as adults, we are yet to understand, believe, or accept.
We discussed...
1) what might make it difficult to understand: as humans, we are limited by what we have been witness to.. Most of us shared that our closest understanding of God's love for us is the love between parent and child, husband and wife, but we know that cannot even compare to God's love for us.
2) why it is difficult to believe: we feel unworthy, we feel like we haven't lived up to His love... we don't understand it so we don't believe it.
3) why we have a hard time accepting His love: we let guilt drive a wedge between us, we don't love ourselves... we don't believe it so we don't accept it.

We miss out on JOY because we don't understand, believe or accept. We allow fear, worry, insecurity, and so many others steal our joy. If we focused on God's love and acceptance on us, we would allow ourselves to find comfort in Him, to turn to Him with our every care, to glorify Him in our every day.

We closed with some scripture that helped us to focus on God's love for us:

1 John 3:1a, "How great is the love the Father has given us so freely! Now we can be called children of God. And that's what we really are!"

Lamentations 3:21-24, "But here is something else I remember. And it gives me hope. The Lord loves us very much. So we haven't been completely destroyed. His loving concern never fails. His great love is new every morning. Lord, how faithful you are! I say to myself, "The Lord is everything I will ever need. So I will put my hope in him."

Romans 8:38-39, "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."