By Christina Patterson
Jesus loves you. No, I’m really serious. Jesus loves you. I know you have heard it from your Sunday school teacher, your Christian friend, in that chain email you got the other day, and from that bumper sticker on the car that cut you off this morning. You have heard it so much that its meaning and power may have diminished in your heart and mind. I say this because God’s love for us is not some cliché that simply looks nice on a T-shirt or sounds good in a song. His love is power. His love is freedom. His love changes things.
My concern for my sisters is that in this fallen world our hearts may have been wounded so badly and bruised so severely by unhealthy relationships, abuse, and sin that we are afraid to believe in God’s true love for us. So we say we know He loves us, but because the true knowledge of His love has not penetrated our hearts and minds we have not been changed by it, we have not been empowered, we have not been set free. Yet God’s love for you does give power, it does give freedom, and it does in fact change things. Not just things, but YOU.
Do you feel lonely? His love means adoption into the family of God. Do you feel lost? His love means purpose. For the weak His love is strength. For the confused, His love is identity. For the trapped, His love is freedom. For the fearful, there is strength. For the sick there is healing. For the broken there is wholeness. For the guilty there is forgiveness. All because of God’s love. Most of all, for the sinner, His love is Eternal Life!
Saying God loves you is not enough. Reading an email is not enough. Liking a Facebook status is not enough. Even going to church is not enough. You must believe in His love. You must know this love, only through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Then you will have healing, freedom, and wholeness. However, it hurts me even more that some have accepted Jesus, but are not receiving the benefits of a life with Him because they have not grasped the true power of His love.
My desire for my sisters is that they might trust God’s love for them. That they would wholeheartedly believe that they are loved, no matter what. Romans 8:38-39 says “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.” (NIV) I pray my sisters will grasp an unmoving knowledge and belief in God’s love for them through Jesus Christ. I pray they will not let anything take away their knowledge of His love for them. I pray they may live the free, whole, satisfied, fulfilled, peaceful and purposeful lives God has ordained them to live.
Sister, I say it again. Jesus loves you. Even if you do not believe me, He loves you. Yet I hope you do believe, not because I say so, but because God proclaimed His love to you when He died on the cross for our sins. He did it for you ~ that you may live a life knowing you are loved.
You know what happens to women who know they are loved? They change. They gain a power that enables them to live free from the bondage of sin. It does not stop there. Then they love God. They love Him so much because they understand what and how He sacrificed for their salvation. It still does not stop there. Then they love others. A woman who knows she is loved, and is changed by that love for the better desperately wants to share in the knowledge of that love.
That is why I am writing to you today. I know God loves me. I know the best and the worst of me cannot change His love for me. His love has given me freedom, hope, courage, power, and most importantly salvation. I want that for all my sisters. This is why I proclaim the message of God’s love over and over and over again. In hopes you will believe and be changed. I will say it one more time ~ Jesus loves you.
© 2012 Christina Patterson
About Christina
Christina Patterson is a wife, mom, and founder of Beloved Women’s Ministry (www.belovedwomen.org). She has a passion to see women reconciled to God through Jesus Christ and fulfilled in knowing who they are: His Beloved. She has her Masters in Theological Studies from Liberty University and lives in Waldorf, MD.
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