Dear Ones,
Hope you have a day of knowing how much you are loved! Ann is coming today and we are going to celebrate her birthday and spend it however she would like. I have a meal ready to go and her Nova Scotia cake!
Devotions from Judy’s heart
I venture to say not many of us know how loved we are by our Heavenly Father. I mean really loved: not for what we do but for who we are. Do we believe He enjoys us and we are His beloved? He loved us first and that is the reason we can love. Maybe we have a hard time believing how much He loves us and miss the enjoyment of really knowing His love in a deep way. One of my favorite Psalms I memorized long ago is Psalm 103 and verse 11 says, “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him.” Can we ever imagine the immensity of God’s love towards us? I doubt it. When we have godly fear and receive Him, nothing can separate us from His love.

The enemy does all he can to cause us to doubt God’s love as he wants to steal our joy from us. He tries to distort God’s grace and love and wants to shame us. Pastor Francis Chan has written a book called Beloved to help us find unshakable assurance of God’s love. His mother died giving birth to him and his dad rejected him and gave him to his grandma to raise until he was five years old. His dad gave him no affection at all, but God is the healer of broken lives and he is now happily married with seven kids and five grandkids who all love the Lord. God restores what the enemy tries to steal from us.

We can go to the scriptures that speak of God’s love, especially when the enemy speaks lies to us and attempts to make us feel like we are worthless. We can meditate on Jeremiah 31:3, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore, I have continued my faithfulness to you.”  Paul says in Romans 8 that nothing can separate us from God’s love, not even death or any kind of powers. In fact, death is our homecoming call, when we will be united with the Lord forever. Sometimes it helps to share our doubts with another Christian when we have trouble experiencing God’s love and receive prayer. Let us not live in doubt of our Heavenly Father’s love, but pray to experience it in new ways.

Challenge for today: Pray daily that the Holy Spirit would spill to overflowing God’s love into your heart.
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy