Does God Believe I Love Him?

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All my emotions about loving God aren't the same as actually loving Him.

A person can feel all kinds of emotions while still walking in selfishness.  Sincerity is very different from obedience.

The only way to love God is to believe in who He says He is.  If I really believe in who God says He is and who He says I am, I would see all fear, uncertainty, anxiety, doubt, jealousy, selfish ambition, and manipulative ideas flee from my mind, will, and emotions. 

Obviously, there is room for me to grow.

Perfect love casts out fear.

Emotions convince me I love God and I feel good in myself about my relationship with God... All the while, I can harbor accusations against Him. God knows the difference between truth and emotions.  Me feeling good about my relationship with Him is different than Him feeling good about it.  He is truth. 

My sincere emotions hide from my mind that my uncertainty about the future is really an accusation against God and who He says He is in my life.

He IS.  Whether I embrace it or not, God is:

-Jehovah Jireh.  He provides.  I've seen it every day of my life.  Worrying about tomorrow is an accusation against His diety. How can I love Him if I don't believe in who He says He is?

-Jehovah Rapha. He is the God who heals me... Spirit, soul, and body.  Do I believe this in a practical way?  How do I love Him as Jehovah Rapha?

-El Roy. The God who sees me.

-Jehovah Nissi. My banner. My protection. My identity. My adoption.

The list is long. Shalom (peace), Tsidkenu (righteousness)... And much more...

I can, and should, consider this in my relationship with Him.  As I find out who He is, do I make Him Lord of these in MY life? Not in an emotional way that makes me feel good, but in a true way that honors who God actually is?

To love God I have to lay down my life... 

John 15:11-16 NKJV — “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.

All my self saving, my uncertainty, my holding back...  All of these ways I don't love God find a root in my shame and my pride.

I really want to love God.  For that to happen, I have to learn to really believe who He says He is for ME. Let Him in. Let His love fill me.

If I do, I will see it manifest as freedom in the way I relate to others around me... Even enemies.  If God really is for me, who could be against me?

This is what makes Yeshua (Jesus) so incredibly unique: He came from God, lived as a man, and showed us how to believe in who God really is... So much so, that even being rejected and crucified, He loved... Because God loved Him.

This is the witness that will endure these days of ours.

I want God to help me open my heart and receive His love for me, so I can shine His love all around me.  I know He is working on this area of my life when fear, anxiety, and uncertainty lose their grip on me.  When the subtle accusations against God give way to the overwhelming obvious truth: God is powerful, present, engaged, and kind.  If He is for me, who could be against me? This, if it's truly from God, will always overflow in mercy to the world around me.

1 John 4:15-21 NKJV — Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us. If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.

This is how I know I'm actually being saved and not just walking a delusional wide road of destruction that many will find, feeling great about my emotions toward God while not really knowing Him at all.  The true road is narrow. Few will find it.

Matthew 7:21-23 NKJV — “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

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