{"id":2017,"date":"2017-03-10T07:03:56","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T14:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/?p=2017"},"modified":"2017-03-10T07:03:56","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T14:03:56","slug":"is-god-love-part-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/?p=2017","title":{"rendered":"Is God Love? (part 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

When your life falls apart, it’s hard to see God’s love for you. \u00a0<\/strong><\/h1>\n

I think this is entirely natural because we have made a deal with God that is supposed to ensure our health, prosperity or happiness. \u00a0The deal we make with God goes like this: If I serve God\u00a0by doing x, God\u00a0will ensure I live a good life (which is how I define it). \u00a0However, God is not in the deal making business. \u00a0Because God is love, he won’t reduce his relationship to us with a deal.<\/p>\n

The last couple of weeks I have been writing about how to embrace God’s love for us in a world that is broken.<\/strong> \u00a0There are three things that help me embrace God’s love for me. Two of them are\u00a0understanding that:\u00a01) <\/b>God Pursues<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a02) God Suffers<\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0 Let’s talk about the third thing that helps me\u00a0embrace God’s love.<\/p>\n

3. God Transforms:<\/b><\/span> God is more interested in my heart than he is in my happiness. \u00a0Suffering on this side of heaven is not wasted with God. \u00a0As hard as it is to hear this news, my suffering isn\u2019t all evil. \u00a0My suffering can be useful and transformative to my spiritual development in understanding his deeper love for me. \u00a0There are numerous examples of this thought in the Bible, but I find myself coming back to Joseph’s story to illustrate this point. <\/span><\/p>\n

Joseph came to this conclusion in his own suffering when he said to his brothers in Egypt, \u201cYou meant it for harm, but God intended it for good.\u201d \u00a0As a result, Joseph took the most hurtful betrayal he had experienced in life, gave it to God, and God used it to demonstrate his love for us. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, only when I suffer can I demonstrate the depth of the passionate love God has for us. \u00a0When I suffer personally, I have a unique opportunity to put God\u2019s love on display. \u00a0However unjustly I have been treated, I can now have the opportunity to reveal God\u2019s love with how I choose to respond to the particular evil I have experienced in my life. \u00a0I can demand justice, or I can offer forgiveness. \u00a0I can wallow or I can worship. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is a tough pill to swallow, but when I suffer I have the opportunity to be transformed. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n

When I suffer, I can be transformed into a person who only talks about God\u2019s love for people to actually demonstrating God’s love\u00a0to others. \u00a0When I say, \u201cNot my will but yours,” I can play out the story of the cross. \u00a0I can sacrifice for others in order to demonstrate God\u2019s crazy love for us.<\/span><\/p>\n

My conviction in all of this is that as a pastor, we don’t let our personal\u00a0experience of evil undermine who God is (He is Love) nor how we can be like him (imitating Him by loving others sacrificially). \u00a0Many people share with me their emotional or physical trauma. \u00a0I think helping people understanding where this pain comes from and how it affects them is good. \u00a0However, helping people see\u00a0that\u00a0<\/span>God\u2019s main goal is to move through their trauma to lead us\u00a0into a deeper experience of his love is better. \u00a0Knowing that my suffering is an opportunity to be transformed helps me embrace God’s love for me in a deeper way.<\/span><\/p>\n

How has God used your suffering to transform you?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When your life falls apart, it’s hard to see God’s love for you. \u00a0 I think this is entirely natural because we have made a deal with God that is supposed to ensure our health, prosperity or happiness. \u00a0The deal we make with God goes like this: If I serve God\u00a0by doing x, God\u00a0will ensure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2018,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.theawakenministry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/God-is-Love-Pt.-3.001.jpeg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2019,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions\/2019"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theawakenministry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}