4. Fact: God loves me

In Eph 1: 16-17 Paul says he continually prayed that God will give the believers wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God. 

Eph 3: 17-19 says that we may be rooted in the depth, breadth, height and width of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge. Wowawee. 

Rom 8: 35-39 declares that nothing can separate us from the love of God, not tribulations, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword, death, life, angels, principalities - nothing present nor to come.

In John 15: 9 Jesus says, "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in  My love" and in 17: 23 Jesus says, "...that they may know that You have loved them as You have loved Me..."

Let us pray.

Father, thank You that You have given me Jesus through whose perfect righteousness I can come to You and bring you my petitions.

Father, I understand if I'm ever to have wisdom and revelation of Who You are it must come from You. It must come from Your Spirit to my spirit (1 Cor 2: 13-16). So too, if I am ever to know Your love, I must ask you to give me revelation of it. James 1: 5 says I only need to ask and You will give me wisdom liberally and without reproach. Father, thank You that You want to liberally give me wisdom in the knowledge of Who You are. I open my heart and mind, I open my spirit to receive the knowledge that makes wise the mind, matures the spirit and anchors the person.  

Father,as I seek to know You - searching for You in the Scriptures that testify of You (John 5: 39) - I will come to see Your beauty, Your passion, Your faithfulness, Your kindness, Your love. I pray You cause my hunger for You to remain consistent. Thank You that I do not simply read the Word for the knowledge it relates, but I understand Your Spirit can make the Word come alive in my Spirit and cause the living Word to grow in revelational dimensions. 

Father... You love me like You love Jesus... and Jesus loves me like He loves You... The God Who sits on the throne in heaven loves me the way He loves the Son with Whom He lay the foundations of the earth... The holy and glorious, uncreated and eternal Father of light loves me like He loves the sinless Lamb before Whom the four living creatures cry night and day "holy, holy, holy". Father, when I see Who You are, I am silenced that You should love me with the same intensity as You love Yourself.

Father forgive me for the many times I read or heard John 15: 9 and 17:23 with a blind and deaf spirit. Open my spiritual eyes and my spiritual ears. Father I pray that these words will continually be on my lips. May I meditate on them day and night. Father, thank You for Your covenant with me that says You Yourself will put Your law in my mind and write it on my heart (Jer 31: 33, Heb 8: 10, Heb 10: 16). Father, where my mind has a understand only a tip-of-the-iceberg chunk of these verses, I pray You give me revelation on the bounty of this promise - that You Yourself will transform me. 

Oh YHWH... You love me... You have always loved me... You will always love me... Jacob said,"Surely the Lord is in this place, and i did not know it" (Gen 28: 16). So too Father I must confess, surely You have loved me always and I did not plummet the depths, width, height or length of it. Forgive me for my satisfaction with my spiritual poverty, forgive me for my negligence and my attitude of "I have heard, but I did recognize the invitation to pursue the life-transforming revelation of these words." Father, please forgive me for my slack attitude about the things of God by settling for mental awareness.

And like you can never be separated from Yourself, so Your love for me cannot be separated by anything. No stress at work, no civil war, no rejection in business, no poverty of environment, no shame, no moral attack, no slander, no abusive husband, no criticizing boss, no future social arrangement, no future president or law, no demonic oppression, no disease, no frustration, no joblessness, no natural catastrophe, no economic crisis, no death of a loved one, no loneliness, no heartache, no sin of my own, no addiction, no depression, no fear, nothing, nothing, nothing can separate me from You loving me. If Your love is always with me, it means I can have joy and contentment in the knowledge of God's love for me even if there is nothing else in my life to be grateful for. Father, I choose to always have Your love first and foremost as my strength and my joy. And though these things in the natural will be strong competitors to determine how I feel about You and myself, how I conduct myself, how I view life, Father, may my foundational reality be: God ALWAYS loves me and it is impossible for Him to love me less. Though I love you less or reject you, You will be unfaithful to Yourself by not loving me to the extent You love Christ. And so You cannot love me more than You already do and You've never loved me less than You always have. Who You are and that You are for me - always - should give me peace and keep my faith alive despite the ruins around me or within me. Your love towards me is firm and strong, deep and wide. Until today, my sin may have caused me to hide from You, as Adam and Eve did and my ignorance or apathy may have caused me to go through life missing out on the firm truth that You love me. But Father thank You for Your redeeming love, these two life stealers of darkness have been driven out by the perfect light of Your Word. 

Father, the Word speaks of the dimensions of Your love for us. It is multi-dimensional and it exceeds the dimensions known to man, for your love surpasses understanding. And there is certainly more than one way to understand this depth, height, width and length of Your love. Thank You Father, that we can know because You are love (1 John 4:8), Your love is limitless. As Your love surpasses understanding I acknowledge that I'm only scraping on the dimensions of Your love and therefore I pray for revelation beyond this prayer.

Eph 4: 8-10 reveals that Jesus descended to hell to lead captivity captive and ascended to heaven to give us gifts - every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Eph 1:3). Thank You that the depth of Your love came to rescue us from hell and eternal separation from You. Even now, as born-again Christians the depth of Your love means to have no separation between us, but for us to have daily fellowship. The depth of Your love aims to cover every sin that causes our hearts to want to hide from You like Adam and Eve did. Christ humbled Himself, left heaven and came down to earth before He descended into hell that we may be reconciled to You to live in the knowledge and love of You - a love You had predestined us for (Eph 1:5). Oh Lord, and the reverse of having saved us from everlasting hell is to give us every spiritual blessing in heaven - demonstrating the height of Your love. Every spiritual blessing... Atkinson and Rice identified 54 spiritual blessings in Christ. Father thank you for salvation, for freedom, for faith, for grace, for rest, for revelation, for strength, for confidence, for wisdom, for sanctification, for love, for acceptance, for power, for favour, for riches, for hope, for forgiveness, for success, for purpose, for new life, for mercy, and on and on. The height of Your love bestows these marvelous blessings on me.

As for the length and breadth of Your love. The Word says You have loved me with an everlasting love (Jer 31: 3) and that You have removed my sins as far as the east is from the west (Ps 103:12). My God, You have loved me before the foundations of the earth (Eph 1: 4) and You will love me into all eternity, Your love for me began in infinity gone by and will last into the unfathomable tomorrow of tomorrows. You not only remove my sin, you remove an array of sins that could stretch from East to West, and You cover the sin of people as diverse as found from West to East. The breadth of Your love embraces all of mankind and remove every colour and flavour of our sins.

What can I thus want as there is nothing lacking in the love You make available to me? And what can separate me from Your love as You deal with every possible shade of sin? Your love makes provision for every past, present, and future need. Your love has given only the best and continues to do so. Thank You Father for the revelation and privilege of walking in the knowledge of the love of God.

Father, may every breath I take be a reminder that confirms and confirms Your love for me. And may every confirmation bring about exponential growth in the revelation of Your love for me.

As such I rebuke every lie that I'm unloved, I bind every action and behaviour pattern which has its root in a lie of rejection, not being lovely, being unwanted, being worthless. Father, Your love makes me whole. Your love accepts me and wants me.

Amen and amen in the name of Jesus.