Receive His Love

May 17, 2000

Do you think you can earn God’s love?  The Bible says if we love Him, we will keep His words and the Father will love us and He & Jesus will come and make their home with us (John 14:23).  It sounds like we need to love Him and then He will love us back.  Right?

Wrong.  We are not capable of loving Him first.  The Bible says we love Him because He first loved us (1 John4:19).  We can only love Him in response to His love for us.

I think we put ourselves through a lot of work and torment, not to mention missing out on what God has for us, because we are trying to earn His love.   We will suffer needlessly because we’re trying to love Him the way we’re "supposed to".  Then we feel guilty because we don’t feel that we have enough love for the Father in our hearts.

We go through the motions of praising and worshipping the Lord and doing all the things we think we should be doing.  But the question is, are we worshipping Him to try and get something or to thank Him for what He’s done for us?

The Father has willingly and freely given His love to us (John 3:16).  We don’t need to try and ‘get’ it by our praise, worship or good works.  We need to receive it.  Then we worship Him out of a thankful heart.  We may know mentally that God has sacrificed for us but if we don’t receive His love in our hearts we will continue on in a vicious cycle of trying to earn His love yet never being able to receive it.  And we will never be able to truly accomplish what He wants us to do because we’re busy trying to earn something from Him that we can never earn and we’re not receiving what we need from Him to be able to go on and do what He wants us to do.

We cannot please God until we receive His love.  And the more we receive His love into our spirits the more freedom we have from our own ‘works’.  Again, we will never be able to please Him until we receive His love.  He will come and make His home with us as we respond to His love.   As we receive His love into our hearts, then He will be able to come and make His home with us.  I believe that’s what John 14:23 means.  Read through John 14 and whenever you read, ‘if you love me...’ Think of it as, ‘if you respond to My love for you with love and thanksgiving to Me...’

He’s not talking about faking it.  We’ve done enough faking it.  He’s talking about really and truly receiving His love.   Don’t pretend.  God loves you.  Receive His love-unconditionally.   Don’t try to earn it-just receive it.  If you do, then love and praise and thanksgiving to Him will be a natural response.  If you don’t have a response like that back then you haven’t really received it.  Pray and ask God what might be hindering you from receiving His love.  He wants you to have it.   Don’t let the devil lie to you and tell you you can’t have it.

God Bless you and have a great day!