You are so loved
March 01, 2023
That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. -Ephesians 3:17-19
God loves you. Do you need to hear that today? Although our love for one another is often conditional, God’s love for us isn’t. He has no hidden motive. He always wants our best. In fact, God is the only one who fully knows us and truly loves us for who we are. That’s what Gina in Texas found as she studied God’s Word with us. Here’s her story:
“My mom didn’t care for me much. As the youngest of her five daughters, I had standards, asked good questions, and didn‘t fall in line with the family group-think and victim mentality. I was also a bookworm and a straight A student. I didn‘t share the same dad with my sisters, and their dad would come and visit them weekly, but my dad lived down the street and visited me maybe once a year.
“I thought to myself, ‘What must I do to be loved?’ My mom and sisters had two names for me: one was crazy, the other was white girl, because they said I talked white. What they meant was that I spoke English without using slang and I had perfect diction. At 12, I asked my mom if she would take me to a psychiatrist since she said I was crazy, and she said no, that I didn’t need one.
“At 15, I had a nervous breakdown. I gave my life to Christ at 16 when a classmate and her mom invited me to church one day after school. I went to college at 17 and graduated with a business degree and decided that there couldn’t be a God because no child should go through the pain and suffering that I did. I left God and turned to Buddhism. Buddhism was a ‘nothing burger’—I left after several years because I couldn’t get answers that made sense to me.
“Fast forward 15 years and on my commute to work I was trying to tune in to the radio and heard Dr. McGee. I quickly changed the station because he had the most awful sounding voice I ever heard. Little did I know that a few short years later that voice was THE voice through which God would share His Word with me, offering me the comfort and security that I had never known before. I’ve been on the Bible Bus for three years now, waking up an extra 30 minutes early just to listen to Dr. J. Vernon McGee and connect with God. This is my formula for winning in life. I now take joy in supporting the Bible Bus and receiving the World Prayer Team emails.”
Isn’t Gina inspiring? Let’s pray now and ask God to reach more people with His message of love and redemption as it goes out on THRU the BIBLE today:
Father, thank You for loving us just as we are, that You don’t wait until we’ve got it all together. You love us even in the muck and mess of our lives. Thank You for saving us, for reaching down and pulling us up with arms of love and not of judgment. As Your Word goes out today, we pray others come to know You and realize they too are loved beyond anything they can hope or understand. In the precious name of Jesus, whose death on the cross was the ultimate act of love, amen.
We can turn to God with our big feelings and our deep sorrows. Hear more tomorrow on World Prayer Today.