The Bottom Line, Ministries Christian News, Articles, & Poetry 
If you do not understand God’s love for you, it will be difficult to grow in relationship with Him and others. Oftentimes, the way we view our parents is how we view God. If we were abandoned by our parents, abused by them, or rejected by them; this will cause us to believe God is the same way. We can attend church for years and never know the Father’s love.
Perhaps you were raised in a home that taught legalistic religion; basically this means doing good works and following rules versus having a personal relationship with Christ. We especially view God in the same the way we see our earthly fathers. If we were ruled with an “iron-fist” or shown no grace and mercy by our fathers, we can easily believe God will do the same with us. God’s love is not the same as human love.
You may feel not good enough to receive God’s love. In your mind, you have sinned too much or done too much for God to embrace you. Maybe you struggle with believing that God cares about what happens to you, and you are being punished somehow for your past mistakes.
Believing that God loves you is not necessarily a feeling but a choice. A choice to believe what God says about you, not what others have said or done to you. Forgive your parents or caretakers if they did not represent God to you in a loving way, it could be that they were not shown how. God loves you right where you are, and He is ever working on you. God is not waiting for you to change until you can accept His love or even receive salvation.
Believe what the Word of God says about His love:
“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
“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-by grace you have been saved … ” Ephesians 2:4-5
“But you, O Lord, are merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” Psalm 86:15
Don’t let the enemy lie to you by telling you that because bad things have happened to you, or God has not answered your prayers that He does not love you. You may wonder, “Where was God when I was being abused, how can He love me if all these horrific things occurred?” I have wrestled with these questions before, but I realize now that we live in a fallen world and sometimes tragedy happens.
Does God care about the suffering that you have gone through? Yes! This can be hard to digest if you have been severely wounded in life. The people who were supposed to love and protect you, were the ones who hurt you the most. God never wanted this type of pain to happen to you. Take some time to reflect on God’s love; it is not like human love. God never gives up on us, He gave His life for us so we could live in eternity, and has great mercy towards us. God’s love is unconditional and He will never abandon nor forsake us.
God wants you to know today that He sees you and that HE LOVES YOU!
What experiences have kept you from receiving God’s love?
