From reading the title, I'm guessing your first response is "of course!"
But let's sit on that for a minute.
Maybe go watch this video by Francis Chan: The Obsession of the Devoted Worshiper
Our first and GREATEST commandment as Christians is to love the Lord our God (Matthew 22:34-40). But we know that already.
We so often don't, almost never, have a deep longing to just be with Papa, to be with Him.
There's a pastor named Dan Mohler who speaks about how he created a space to meet the Holy Spirit intimately, to speak and hear and communicate and have a relationship with the Spirit. He would intentionally enter his bedroom and ask the Holy Spirit to really move in and around him in that space specifically. And every time he would close the door to that room, as an act of faith, he would start speaking to Holy Spirit and after a little while of doing this practice he started to feel the tangible presence of the Spirit in the room, over him.
It's a practice of faith.
When we live by faith, we trust that God loves us- ALWAYS- and so we then get the chance to love Him back. But when we are forever in this in between space where we kinda-sorta know, but doubt, but then trust (feelings)...we are always wanting to receive God's love and we forget to tell Him how much we love Him too. It's a gratefulness, it's a condition that we need to settle in our hearts.
Choosing to love God isn't a process that we have to go through though. In a message that Sadie Robertson shared at the Passion conference this year, she spoke about how when we are building relationships with humans we have to go through an entire, rather lengthy process before we can say 'I love you'. But with God it's simple. When he chose Simon Peter and Andrew (Matthew 4:18-20) as they were fishing, Jesus literally just said "Follow me", and that was it- they followed Him. Eventually Peter denies Jesus and only afterwards does he realize what he has actually done. So he went from immediately following Jesus and truly believing that Jesus was the Messiah, to denying Him. That kinda feels like something we all do. Peter probably felt pretty guilty about that, as we do when we sin. We then start wondering, can God still love me after what I've done?
John 21: 15 Jesus doesn't say to Peter "I love you", he says "Do you love me?"
Why? Why would Jesus not comfort Peter with those words after Peter was the one who was guilty? Peter KNEW Jesus loved him. Jesus came and cooked him breakfast, where Peter was. God's love is not confusing, again, it's simple.
John 1:38 "What are you seeking?"
Affirmation of His love? Or a deeper relationship with Papa?
Thank you Jesus that we don't need to run after your love, but that you died on the cross that we may know your love. Thank you God for giving us Your Son!
Holy Spirit, thank you that we can speak to you anytime because you are inside of us, you are around us. Thank you Lord for your love. I pray that whoever reads this will know Your love in a new way!
I love you Papa. Amen.
These are the links to the two messages I mentioned above, you can click on them and they will take you to Youtube.
-Caryn
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