Pastor Lynn Spoon
March 16, 2025
God's Love For Me
We have a desperate need to be loved. The misunderstanding is that many of us don’t fully comprehend God’s love is personal for us.
We’re all in different stages of our spiritual journey.
God loves you very much right now just as you are.
You can try to fill that need with whatever you want but there’s only one correct answer. It’s God’s love.
“The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying, ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with loving kindness.’” Jeremiah 31:3 NIV
Your greatest need is not money, success or fame. Your greatest need is not another job. Your greatest need is to be loved. Not sentimental love, not sexual love, but God’s love.
Love Masks; are what we put on to disguise our real need for love.
Performance When we achieve and/or perform and accomplish certain things. We get strokes, a little bit of value, a little bit of love from that. People. Oftentimes we obtain love and affirmation and value from other people. Like “My kid is a star at school.” They’re good at sports and we vicariously live through them. “Look at me! I’m with her!” Pity. Some will put themselves down to gain a us on the back with that person saying, it’s not true “You don’t resemble a toadstool.” Position. “If I can just get that manager position … that CEO, …that next rung on the ladder, then I’m going to be valued and loved.” Physical Affection. Many times, we equate physical contact with love. “If I could just have sex with …” That would be another form of love.
Pleasure. “If I could just have that next vacation … that next high … that next thrill and experience.”
Possessions. “If I could live in that house … if I could live in that neighborhood … if I could drive that car …” – not just a sports utility vehicle but a Mercedes or Hummer utility vehicle!
Problems. This is more of a juvenile form, “If I just get into trouble enough … if I just create problems …then people will give me attention.
The major problem with all these masks is they’re only temporary. When we wear masks like those it causes an insatiable thirst for more.
With God’s love there is no limits. “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17b-19 NIV
God loves you, He really, really loves you on your good days. And He also really, really loves you on your bad days? Why? Because that’s what He does and who He is ! “God is love.”
Because of that I am able to understand better the 23rd Psalm where it said, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
God’s names in the O. T. today it is Jehovah Roi which means “I am the God who shepherds you.” God referred to Himself as a shepherd and because He cares for us so much, we can have no wants. In the New Testament, Jesus, God in flesh also called Himself a shepherd.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd is willing to die for the sheep.” John 10:11
Sheep require endless attention because they easily go astray. And you wonder why we’re compared to sheep?
1. God knows me and Yet still loves me. “I am the good shepherd, and I know my own sheep and they know me.” John 10:14
Nothing is too big or petty for God. “And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Matthew 10:30
“Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures through all generations. The LORD is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made.” Psalm 145:13 That is His unconditional love to you.
We often put our finite thinking and our finite expectations on our… Infinite God.
“God’s riches are very great, and His wisdom and knowledge have no end. No one can explain the things God decides or understand His ways.” Romans 11:33 NCV
“Let him have all your worries and cares, for He is always thinking about you and watching everything that concerns you.” 1st Peter 5:7 LB,
2. GOD ALSO PROTECTS ME…
“O Lord don’t hold back your tender mercies from me! My only hope is in Your love and faithfulness.” Psalm 40:11 LB (It’s actually the only thing I’ve got going for me.) “Otherwise, I perish, for problems far too big for me to solve are piled higher than my head. Meanwhile my sins, too many to count, have all caught up with me and I am ashamed to look up. My heart quails within me.” Verse 12
“The eternal God is your refuge and underneath you are His everlasting arms.” Deuteronomy 33:27
“Nothing above us, nothing below us, nor anything else in the whole world will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:39 NCV
3. GOD GUIDES AND DIRECTS ME.
He knows that this life can be difficult to be lived on our own. “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” Romans 8:14
Do you feel and follow His leadings?
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11
Are you listening? God is Jehovah Roi, the shepherd who cares for His sheep. When you hear of this type of love. How should we respond to it?
A. I need to Receive God’s love.
“God has shown us how much He loves us. It was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
It’s not just believing in Jesus. “But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave them the right to become children of God.” John 1:12 NLT
B. I need to Refill myself with God’s love. Daily.
“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in My love.” John 15:9
C. I need to Reflect God’s love to others. Give it away.
“I am giving a new commandment to you now. Love each other just as much as I love you. Your strong love for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples. John 13:34-35 LB
When we love one another, that’s a display of God’s love to the world.
The challenge this week. Be thinking every day, who can I pass God’s love along to. There’s a God in heaven who loves you just as you are! Whether you like it or not, whether you deserve it or not, He’s crazy about you.
