God loves you, and He wants you to believe it and receive it all the time.
Have
you ever wondered if you are good enough for God to love you?
Unfortunately, many people believe God loves them only as long as they
don’t make mistakes. So when they make mistakes, they don’t like
themselves very much, and they conclude that God must not be very
impressed with them either.
Perhaps
it was such an outlook that caused the psalmist to ask, “What is man
that You are mindful of him?” (Ps. 8:4, The Amplified Bible). Yet the
Bible tells us that we are God’s creation-the work of His hands-and that
He loves each one of us unconditionally. In fact, the Bible tells us
that God is love (see 1 John 4:16).
Let’s face it: Jesus didn’t die for you because you were great and
wonderful; He died for you because He loves you. Romans 5:8-9 confirms
this truth: “God shows and clearly proves His [own] love for us by the
fact that while we were still sinners, Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed
One) died for us. Therefore, since we are now justified (acquitted,
made righteous, and brought into right relationship with God) by
Christ’s blood, how much more [certain is it that] we shall be saved by
Him from the indignation and wrath of God.”
God loved you enough to give His only begotten Son not only to die for
your sins but also to cover your daily mistakes. He loves you enough to
get you through each day in power and victory.
For most of us, our biggest problem is that we don’t like ourselves, and
our skewed outlook makes it difficult for us to believe that God-or
anyone else, for that matter-could possibly love us. We think, I’m not
good enough-I’m such a mess!
For years I struggled with this problem. I spent at least 75 percent of
my time trying to change myself.
I thought I talked too much, so I tried to be quiet. But then if I was
quiet, I got depressed, and everyone wanted to know why I was quiet. I
would think: I have a big mouth, and I’m just trying to be quiet. Leave
me alone.
I can’t tell you how many years I went through that. And yet my mouth
was always getting me into trouble. The situations I created were bad
enough, but to make things worse, the devil never missed a chance to
remind me of my mistakes. That’s called condemnation-but God let me know
He loved me so much that He covered it, too.
Isaiah 53 tells us that when Jesus died for our sins, He also bore the
guilt. He loved us so much He paid the price so we wouldn’t have to
suffer with the terrible feelings of condemnation. If we go to God as
soon as we realize that we have sinned and sincerely ask Him to forgive
us, He does, and there is no reason to feel condemnation.
When you do something wrong, it is the devil-not God-who tries to
condemn you. He will say: “You’ve done it now. God is never going to
bless you. You can’t witness to anybody because you’re not good enough.”
But that is not true.
God loves you, and He wants you to believe it and receive it all the
time. He also wants you to be free from condemnation. But it takes faith
and boldness to be free.
Your feeling guilty will not pay for even one thing you have done wrong.
God’s love for you has already taken care of the guilt, and He wants
you to accept it and get on with doing His will.
When the devil tries to lay condemnation on you by telling you that
you’re not good enough for God to love you, you must allow boldness to
rise up in your inner man and say: “Devil, take a hike. Jesus loved me
enough to pay for my sin, and He has also taken care of the
condemnation.”
That brings us back to the original question: Are you good enough to
receive God’s great love? He says yes, so receive it gladly, knowing
that you are His child … the apple of His eye.
Joyce Meyer is the author of nearly 90 books, including Battlefield of the Mind and Power Thoughts (Hachette). She is the the host of Enjoying Everyday Life radio and TV programs.
