If I Please God Will He Love Me?

​I have been in fulltime work of the Gospel for nearly 15 years, and no matter how hard I try, inevitably I find myself fighting against the knowledge I have of God’s love for me.  My “default” thinking wants to see God with a list of my good and bad deeds, rewarding or denying His goodness towards me based on that list.  This is wrong thinking and I am regularly amazed with how easily I get caught up in it over and over again.
 
I “know” He loves me, and I “know” that it’s unconditional… but I often don’t truly live in that place in my heart and mind.  God’s love is not just to be heard about, but experienced.

No greater example of this problem is seen than with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  To the contrary to what many Christians teach and believe, after they sinned God banished them from the garden, not out of punishment but out of a deeply emotional and loving response from God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit.  God’s motive for banishing them from the garden is recorded that we might forever understand where His heart was during this deeply traumatic experience.

Genesis 3:22-24
Then the Lord God said, “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!” So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. After sending them out, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the Garden of Eden. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

God was not angry with them, and He definitely wasn’t pouring out judgment and punishment on them.  He loved them, and all that they represented as first created of an entire human race meant to live in intimate relationship with Him.  No, the Triune God had to let them go so that they would not remain in a fallen state, forever separated from God for all of eternity.  And as He sent them out, He also set into motion His plan to bring them back!  And as we know from His own words… “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son”… this was no little plan.  This plan came at great personal cost to himself… because of His Great Love!

Unfortunately it doesn’t take much in our weakened sinful state to withdraw back to a place of shame and guilt, even so much as to doubt, and ultimately reject the concept that God loves us with a very personal and intimate love.  The voice of the enemy points us to the angel standing guard at the entrance to Eden, blocking our re-entry, keeping us out, reminding us of our guilt.  But the truth of God points us forward to a place of healing and restored relationship.

God created us from His love.  God sustains us through His love.  God redeems us because of His love.  There is no more condemnation for those in Christ Jesus!  (Romans 8:1) He is nearer to you now than ever before.  He has given you His spirit to dwell within you, to be connected with you, to reveal more of Himself to you.

His love is fierce. His love is intense.  The strength of His love surpasses our own failures.  And yet while none of us are good enough to earn his love, we are loved by Him nonetheless.  No, you don’t need to please Him in order to gain His love.  He loves you already, by His own choice.

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Prayer

​Father, help me today not to allow the enemy, Satan, to steal the peace and healing to my soul that comes with the knowledge of your love for me.  Your word tells me that even when you discipline me it is out of your great love for me.  I repent of a religious mindset that says I must earn your love and earn your favor.  In Christ Jesus your love and faithfulness have been made known to me.  May I live this day in the fullness of that knowledge!