The other morning, Father kept saying over and over to me, “You are My beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased!” until it sank deep inside, affecting me as only His words can. It was as if He was trying to tell me that I didn’t yet fully understand the mystery of these words.
Then, I saw Jesus, right in my face in the Spirit, holding up a sign that read, “Beloved!”
I studied it for a while and finally saw it.! If you separate the word beloved, you get the message He wants you to hear— and that is to be loved by Him!
As His beloved daughter, I cannot change the fact that I am beloved by Him, but sometimes I don’t feel His love. Indeed, when the accusing voices come demanding perfection, finding nothing but fault to strip you of the certainty of feeling loved by God, they’re trying to rob you of God Himself.
It doesn’t matter if we feel unlovable, because His love is unconditional—there are no conditions to His love. So truly, it’s not about feeling lovable, because we could never do enough good to redeem ourselves. It’s about the fact that He is love defined. God is love, and if we deny His love, we deny Him, because the two cannot be separated. It is who He is. It is His essence, His being.
When Father calls you beloved, He is doing more than trying to show you that He loves you. He is trying to get you to allow Him to love you. He wants you to let yourself be loved by Him!
A Celebrating Father
Years ago, I had a very intense vision of Father. He was indescribable in His perfection and beauty, much more than I’d ever imagined Him to be. He was, indeed, love personified. Yet, even saying that does not really convey His character because our human love, even at its best, doesn’t come close to describing His love. His love is much more than accepting of us, appreciating or tolerating us. His love is a celebration. When He sees you or even thinks about you, His love explodes in delight.
It’s no wonder Jesus represented Father’s nature with the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), because it is much more like that than anything else we’ve been told. The miracle of our whole lives will be that while we were yet sinners, He loved us (Rom. 5:8).
Truly, His love is continually pursuing you all day, every day and every minute of every day. Yet we don’t feel it unless we allow ourselves to be loved by Him. We must believe and receive it for ourselves. It’s for you; you’re not excluded. He wants you to be loved by Him!
Father’s Love
The closest human example of love I can think of to describe Father God is the love I experienced from my mother’s father. He was one of those people that when he loved you, he left no doubt in your mind that he loved you. When I was little, his giant blue eyes would light up when he saw me, and he would explode with celebration. He was so loud and would pick me up and squeeze me so tight I thought I might burst. He’d twirl me around and then sit me back down on my own two feet, just to stand back and look at me with an expression of celebratory pride.
Sometimes I think of him in heaven, now with his heavenly Father, and I think they must have so much in common. Heavenly Father has the most amazing, piercing eyes, filled to overflowing with excited celebration when He sees His beloved child. He wants nothing more than to pick you up and squeeze you so tight, dancing with the glee of seeing you. And surely, He too sits you back down on your own two feet just to stand back and look at who you are, overwhelmed with pride at everything you do.
Every time you wake up, He loves you. When you’re exhausted, He loves you. When you’re cranky, He loves you. And when you pull yourself back up one more time after you have fallen again, He loves you to tears.
In our human relationships, there’s a great pain in loving someone who doesn’t love themselves. It’s much more painful for God; it hurts Him unbelievably when you won’t let yourself be loved by Him, because in receiving His love, you are truly receiving Him!
Just the Way You Are
Several years back, I had a run-in with someone, and they hurt me very badly. I felt so unloved, so contemptible and horrid. I thought it would be a long time before I could stop feeling the self-hatred that condemnation can bring.
Then one time, after a difficult night’s sleep, I woke up the next morning, and before remembrances of the previous day could hit me, I felt Holy Spirit singing to me. (I love it when He does that.) He was singing a song that I’d heard and liked. It was Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars.
The words sank deep into my mind, restoring my soul. I broke down crying before my feet hit the floor. He knew what was needed and His love washed over me. Even if no other human soul in the world loved or approved of me, there was nothing on earth that could measure His love, acceptance and celebration over me!
He was loving me and He was accepting me, but because of accusation, condemnation and rejection, I couldn’t feel it. I could only see and feel the hurtful words that were spoken to me, yet God’s love was fighting for me. I just had to receive it, because “beloved” equals “be loved.” It’s an order. It’s His decree—His edict!
People can often quote the Scripture in Matthew 5:48, “Therefore be perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect,” in a way which implies that we need to be perfect before we’ll be acceptable to God, or that His love is expressed merely from a position of tolerance rather than love.
Indeed, in that Scripture, Christ is saying, “Put on My Father’s perfect love. He is perfect because He is love, and His love is perfect and complete.” Human love is fraught with fragile places and collapses at the first sign of pain, but His love is perfect. We can only really love perfectly if we accept His perfect, unconditional, revolutionary love for ourselves, no matter what others think we deserve.
People can devastate your soul, loss can strip you of your equilibrium and failure can leave you disgusted with yourself. None of that changes the fact that the Almighty God in heaven, who created the universe, the mountains, oceans and deserts, also created You. And you absolutely were His grand finale.
He made you to love you. He imagined you and loved you before you were even conceived. All of heaven celebrated with Him the day you were born. They cheered when you took your first steps and rejoiced when you finally turned your eyes to Him for the first and the second and the third and the one millionth time!
A Slanderous Lie
The enemy of your soul wants very much to convince you that God is not love, or that if He is, you don’t qualify for His love. No other dreadful lie is more hated by Father than this, because it is truly the exact opposite. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).
King David said, “If my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me in” (Ps. 27:10). The world can hate you, your parents can abandon you, but none of that disqualifies you from God’s love—it doesn’t even come close!
Let God love you! Let Him forgive you! Let yourself be loved by Him. Don’t deny Him the joy of loving His child, the delight of His heart, His work of art. Like a good father loves His child and would be brokenhearted to be separated from Him, your heavenly Father feels the separation from you intensely. He wants you back.
Maybe you’ve walked with Him your whole life, but have you let Him love you? Lord Jesus stands in front of you right now, as you read these words, and He’s crying out to let yourself be loved!
Victoria Boyson is a powerful and genuine prophetic voice. She is the founder of Victoria Boyson Ministries and Women of Impact Ministries, a ministry dedicated to raising up an army of women who will impact and revolutionize their world. She is a passionate speaker, operating in extraordinary authority to awaken the church to its victorious reality. Based out of the Houston, Texas area, she is called to awaken and prepare the bride of Christ for the end-time harvest and compel His church to embrace a passionate relationship with the heavenly Father. She is the author of The Birth of Your Destiny, His Passionate Pursuit, Awakening: The Deep Sleep and God’s Magnum Opus: The Value of a Woman.
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