Loved

As I reminded my students this week: (Yep, I claim them all)

When your circumstances make you question God's love for you--

First. Stand for a moment at the foot of the cross. He died for you. The longer I live the more I am moved in my soul by that truth. I have lived with myself for a long time, and I can't imagine anyone willingly dying for me. But the perfect, sinless Son of God died for me. And I didn't ask Him to--He willingly volunteered.
Second. Remember that positionally--this very moment--you are perfect. All your sins have been forgiven. All of them. You can never be condemned. You have been justified. He has taken away your sin and robed you in His righteousness. As Paul says in Colossians--your life is hid in Christ. When God looks at you, He sees His Son.
Third. Daily, because though you are positionally perfect but not yet perfected, He intercedes on your behalf. He ever lives to make intercession for you. Even when you deliberately sin, He stands before the Father and says, "I paid for that sin." And if that love doesn't motivate you to loving obedience, I don't know what will.
Fourth. One day, when He is revealed, when you see Him as He is, you will be eternally made perfect. You will be like Him. You will be forever freed from even the desire to sin.
Fifth. He will never leave you nor forsake you. You will never experience what He experienced on the cross--being forsaken by God. Even when you are faithless, He will be faithful. Ascend up into the heavens--He is there. Descend into the deepest part of the ocean--He is there. Go so far East you're West. He is there. Go to the grave. He is there. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are WITH me. Nothing in life, not even death can separate you from His love. No amount of space or time can separate you from His love. No power natural or supernatural can separate you from His love. As you weep over your circumstances, guess where He is? Yes. There with you--weeping.
Sixth. When you are flat on your face, defeated, strengthless, not being able to imagine going on, He comes to you and promises: "When you are weak, then I can empower you with My strength. Yes, now, I can use you to do all things. Now I can transform you into My likeness. Now you can be the personification of My love and My grace to all with whom you interact."

You are deeply loved! And the key to understanding more fully the depth of His love, the key to being filled with the fullness of God exceedingly above all that you could ask or imagine is His prayer in the Garden. When in your Gethsemane, you cry out to the Father, "Isn't there another way for me to accomplish Your will?" and the Father, Who is Love, says, "No, this is the only way." Then, you must pray, "Then not my will, Lord, but Yours. Whatever it takes for me to glorify You--and to sense experientially the great heighth, and width, and depth of your love for me--that's what I desire--I want Your will above all else.

Yes, when the worst imaginable thing is happening to you, you are incomprehensibly loved.