Accepting God’s Love

January 31, 2012 By 13 Comments

It begins with sin and failure. We lament because we can’t measure up – no matter how strong our resolve or determination, we just can’t seem to get it together. We might be carried by motivation for a day, but the next day is followed by failure yet again.

This cycle can lead to frustrations in ourselves for failure to measure up. After a while, we can, perhaps unknowingly, begin a cycle of self-hatred.

This happens when we have no patience with ourselves. We loathe ourselves because of our sin. We hate that we fail God, fail our families, and can never get it right. And we hate ourselves for it.

We may not recognize it as hate, but because we are putting so much faith in self, and then self fails us, we become bitter with ourselves. Ironic as it sounds, this may even be a form of idolatry; this faith in self. We set ourselves up as if we are capable of righteous living on our own. When we walk in this defeated way, we live as if we didn’t depend on Christ, but rather we’re depending on ourselves.

If we do not love ourselves, we cannot love others – because we cannot give what we don’t have.

So how do we break this cycle?

Scripture

Who does God say we are?

Children of God -

“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” 1 John 3:1

Loved -

“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved.” Ephesians 2:4-5

Forgiven -

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9

Faith

Faith comes by hearing.

“So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” Romans 10:17

Faith comes by believing. We believe that God is who He says He is and He’s going to do what He said He’s going to do.

Faith is not some power of positive thinking – that if we just believe hard enough that something is true, then we have faith. Wrong. Faith isn’t based on what we can do (through our “positive thinking”). Faith is what He’s already done, and  accepting it as truth.

It does no good to read the Scriptures if we don’t believe what they say – if we don’t believe they were meant for us.

Practice

Pulling ourselves from this mindset is going to take practice. The best way to defeat a lie is to counter it with Truth. Meditate on Scripture. Read often and believe what you read!

Also? And this is important: Let Him love on you. Sometimes we are so wrapped up in our faults and unworthiness, we shut Him out from loving on us simply because we don’t deserve it. It’s a hard place to be, because we don’t want to make our “self” believe our sin is OK simply because we allow God to accept us. Remember where our acceptance lies: not in our “self”, but in Christ. God loves us too much to let us go–to be separated from us.

Compassion

I remember a story in the Old Testament that reminds me of God’s compassion for His people. David sinned by ordering a census of the land. The census was a form of comfort in his power. When he realized His mistake, God gave him 3 choices of punishment. Three years of famine in his land, three months of fleeing from your enemies, or three days of plague on your land?

David chose the three days of plague. After the angel stretched his hand over the land and seventy thousand people had died, God ordered Him to stop, because He was grieved due to the affliction on his people.

Don’t you see? Our sin tore up God as much as it does us. The difference? God sent us Jesus so we would no longer have to allow this sin to keep us separated from our Father – not just in heaven, but here, on earth, too. Now.

So yes, keep working out your faith and walking in His footsteps. Do not fail to try.

But know even upon your stumbling, you are still greatly loved. You must believe this to receive it. And you must receive it to give it.

Need some extra encouragement? Visit Rhonda at Abide at Home as she has compiled a list of great encouragement from some wonderful bloggers.

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If you haven’t yet, be sure to enter the giveaway for a free copy of Savoring Living Waters – How to Have an Effective Quiet Time.

 

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Filed Under: Dangers, Living for Him
  • http://twitter.com/MMHomeschooling Anna Molder

    I appriciate the sentiment but no where does the Bible tell us to love ourselves. In fact our nature is such that we usually love ourselves too much! We are to love, period. We are to love our God, our husbands, our children, our neighbors and our enemies. There is no call in the Bible to love one’s self but rather to forsake yourself in exchange for service to others. Again I understand what you are trying to say, but I respectfully disagree that loving oneself leads to the ability to love others. That ability comes only from the prompting of the Holy Spirit and forsaking of oneself. It is not about me.

    • http://joyfulmothering.net Christin

      What about “Love your neighbor as yourself” Mark 12:31?

      Love is not some conceited infatuation. It’s a call to patience and kindness. Forgiveness and grace.

      • http://twitter.com/MMHomeschooling Anna Molder

        I knew that was coming ;) The Bible isnt telling us to love ourselves so that we can love our neighbor, it is saying “hey you know how much you love yourself? Well love your neighbor like that.” It is pointing out the state that we are already in, the fact that we naturally have a love for ourself.

        • http://joyfulmothering.net Christin

          OK, so how is this unbiblical? I didn’t say to fawn over ourselves. When I talk about loving ourselves, I don’t mean loving our fleshly desires, but our souls, our spiritual person in Christ.

          Do you not believe there are people who cannot love themselves? They cannot love their neighbor if they have no love for themselves. I don’t mean a conceited, selfish love (which is not love). I mean the love in 1 Corinthians 13. A love that forgives and trusts that God forgives. <3

          • http://twitter.com/MMHomeschooling Anna Molder

            I am simply saying that loving myself does not give me the ability to love others. Forsaking myself does :) Only Christ gives me the ability to love others through the gift of the Holy Spirit who dwells inside me from the moment of salvation. Self love has nothing to do with the ability to love others. I have no self worth. My worth is solely based apon the saving grace of Christ. The only spiritual worth I have is based in Him as well. I have no right to love myself for that, I love Christ and in response to loving Christ I love others.

            I find the theology of “self-love” no matter how you word it to be dangerous. We have allowed our churches to be infiltrated with new age self esteem psychology and it tears us away from being Christ like. Jesus was the utter epitomy of selfless love and sacrifice. That is what we are called to do.

            Self-love is just another form of pride.

          • http://joyfulmothering.net Christin

            Ha ha. I see what you’re saying. I think we just have two different definitions of self love.
            But, I do totally agree that the churches are filled with new-age humanistic garbage and I can totally see how this can be a turn off.

            As I stated in a previous comment, by loving self I don’t mean our fleshly self with it’s sin and ugliness. I simply mean loving who God has made us to be – but only doing this THROUGH Him. Without God’s love we could have no love of our self.
            If we didn’t have love for our self, we would not accept Christ. It’s a fruit of the Spirit…something we cannot do alone. But it is definitely something we can deny.

            Thank you for your sharpening here. Forgive me if I came off abrasive in the above comments…it wasn’t my intention. :)

          • http://twitter.com/MMHomeschooling Anna Molder

            Ahh but now you are putting salavation on us! If we dont love ourselves we can’t accept Christ. No! Our role in salvation is not to love ourself, it is to realize the wicked and unlovable nature, through the prompting of the Holy Spirit, of ourself, to realize that only Christ can save us and that HIS love (not our own) and willingness to die on the cross in our place, and to repent and believe that we are saved. Not because we learned to love ourself. The fruit of the spirit is a result of salvation not the cause. Just as love is a result not the cause.

            No, I sincerely appriciate you keeping the discussion civil. It has been noted not just by me but by my followers who are reading that you have been very polite in your replies :)

          • http://joyfulmothering.net Christin

            Hi Anna,
            Thank you so much for enlightening me to some things. I plan to address the topic with a follow up post next week.

            After all things considered, I believe my title is totally off base. My aim was not to endorse loving self in the sense that it’s been taken. In fact, I do believe it’s more about receiving God’s love for us that helps to push out the lies of the enemy and the struggles I mentioned in my above post.
            I do hope you’ll come back and share your input? I need accountability and the last thing I want is to lead other’s astray.

            Don’t worry, I’m not as gullible as I sound. Just see this post here: http://joyfulmothering.net/2011/05/27/apologetics/
            or here
            http://joyfulmothering.net/2011/02/03/the-bible-the-inspired-word-of-god/

            I just want His Truth. :) Bless you!

          • http://twitter.com/MMHomeschooling Anna Molder

            I am looking forward to reading it! I do believe I understand what you were trying to say. Sometimes it is hard to get thoughts out onto paper. They roll around in our heads and we understand what we mean, but when we actually try to say them…Been there done that myself several times!

            I do think that Christ loves us and that he wants us to enjoy His love, and that part of being is daughter is enjoying his love and that because of his love we are  able to love others. I hope that you are enjoying Christ’s unconditional love yourself and I will indeed come back and see what else you have to say!

          • http://twitter.com/MMHomeschooling Anna Molder

            PS I remember the Circle of Mom’s fiasco. For once I decided to stay out of it LOL

        • http://joyfulmothering.net Christin

          I also wanted to add…my entire post above breaks down ways to love ourselves. Notice I didn’t put to go on a shopping spree or go get your nails done to make yourself feel better. ;)

          I wrote what the Scriptures say about how God loves us and forgives us. If we trust HIM, self-loathing or self-hate would diminish. Ultimately, loving ourselves is believing that God loves us.

          It’s not being conceited with self and doing things for self. That’s not what love is. As you stated. :) I hope I am clarifying. I read over my post many times making sure I didn’t forget anything. <3

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Sarah-Melendez/1350406975 Sarah Melendez

    As a Christian, who am I anyway?  Aren’t I a new creation?  Is it okay and good to love that work that God has done in me?  Not for my own sake, of course- but in order to glorify God by being thankful and appreciative of His hand on me.

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