Someone cares. Someone loves us. Ahhhhhhh….Someone wants to take the time. Someone wants to make an effort. Someone wants to make us feel special.
Today we are going to study and learn that God gives a Valentine’s gift to special girls. He spends special time to prepare this gift especially for us, as if we are the only girl on the earth. How incredibly rich I am that the God of this Universe would prepare a gift …. just for me.
John 4:10 “Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God,”.
God has many wonderful things in store for your life. He has great plans for you. To prove it He wrote it in Jeremiah 29:11-13 GNB Version “I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you peace and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for”.
Let’s examine that verse very closely. ‘I alone’ means no one else knows the plans for your life. Your Parents don’t, Pastor and his Wife don’t, you yourself do not know the plans God has for your life. Then why in the world would we ask so many people what we should do, when GOD is the one that has THE plan for your life. Huh? We need to be taught what the bible says about this or we won’t know and we’ll ask hundreds of people over the course of our life what we should do about the questions we have. This is why our prayer life is so important.
Hebrews 4:16 “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace…”. We can boldly come and ask Him for direction to see His plan for our lives. We can boldly come to His throne in heaven as we learned last week and ask Him to reveal His plan for us, giving us hope that the trouble we feel in our hearts will soon be over. That the questions we have about what job I should work, what friends I should have, what mate I should marry will all be answered. This is why our prayer life is so vital, talking to God boldly, no shyly. He has your best interest at heart. Let’s go back to the scripture in Jeremiah: ‘plans to bring you peace and not disaster’. This means though we will go through trials, God’s plan for us is for us to have safety. Sometimes we become afraid and we lose our peace. We have a turbulent relationship and we feel we’ll lose them. God says I know the plans of peace I have for you. Come to Me, ask of Me and I will show you this peace and not disaster.
‘plans to bring about the future you hope for’. We all have hopes and dreams, dreams of being a pretty good college basketball player, receiving a scholarship perhaps. Or marrying a man that loves us and wants to make us happy, having children and living in a Godly home. We all have hopes of being a godly woman, loving others, giving of our hearts, and being accepting by others. We have hopes of having a better life, having what we need, and not doing without. God has these hopes and dreams written down in His mind.
Turn to Psalm 37:3-4 “Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart”. God wouldn’t be able to bring about the desires of your heart, if He didn’t know them. He knows your heart. He knows your secrets, your secret wants and desires and hopes and dreams. He knows you.
The next two verses in Jeremiah 29 are just as important; 12-13 “Then you will call to me. You will come and pray to me, and I will answer you. You will seek me, and you will find me because you will seek me with all your heart”.
With all my heart means sincerely, meaning business, wanting to know what GOD has to say about my life. My life! Not my friend’s life, MY LIFE. I’m important to God. He cares enough, loves enough, spends enough effort….. on plans for my life.
Ephesians 2:4 ”But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us…”. God loves me. He cares so much about me. He plans, He moves circumstances in my behalf. He loves me.
Romans 5:8 ”But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us”. He took great effort toward me. He had me on His mind as He planned out my day today. He made a lot of effort toward me.
Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose”. He works in my behalf. Even when things go wrong, He makes it worth it. He makes it turn out for my good!
Romans 8:35 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword”? He never stops loving me. This is in spite of me sometimes because I don’t always act loveable, or agreeable, or cooperative. He still loves me no matter what. He still has a good plan for my life. Trusting in Him, doing good, and delighting myself in Him moves His heart, and He gives me the desires of me hearts. Not His heart, my hearts. He cares so deeply, though no one else may. He loves so tenderly, though no one else might. He does!
Ephesians 3:17 “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love”. He wants me grounded in His love too. He wants me to be so deep in His love that I know it without a shadow of doubt that He loves little ‘ole me. He wants it driven so deeply into my heart that He loves me, that a root grows deep down into my very soul that He loves me, cares for me.
Ephesians 3:19 “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God”. He wants me to know His love, be acquainted with His love, that I would know His love when I see someone else that loves Him and know it because I recognize it. Why? So I might be filled with all the fullness of God. God wants me full of Him, not full of myself. He wants to be so big in me that I think His thoughts, know His voice, hear His heart, that I KNOW Him!
1Peter 4:10 “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God”. He wants me so full of Him, this gift of love, that I will share it with others. Giving love, sharing love, is sharing God. Sharing God, sharing Christ, is an honor.
John 15:13 “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”. Sharing the love of God, is putting others first. Sharing the love of God means letting them have their way, above your way. Putting them first, is laying down your life for your friends. Besides, that’s what Jesus did. He laid down His life for His friends, us.
John 10:15 “…and I lay down my life for the sheep”. Laying His life down for me, loving me this much, should make me feel so special, so loved, so cared for. He wanted to have a loving relationship with me so badly, He died to have it. God sent Jesus to take my place to die, because He loves me this much. I believe this kind of love, this depth of love, deserves to be honored, returned, regarded highly.
John 13:35 ”By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another”. This kind of love God has for me, He wants me to share. He doesn’t want me to just be loved by Him but He wants me to go out and love others. This is a mark of a true friend, follower, disciple of Jesus, if we love others.
John 13:34 ”A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another”.
1 Peter 1:22 “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently:”.
1 John 4:7 “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God”.
The love of God is the gift of God. This gift is free. I never have to work for it, beg for it, wish for it, it’s mine. I have it already. Nothing can separate me from it, take it from me, and no one can mess it up. It’s pure. It’s honest. It won’t lie to me. It won’t flatter me just to get something. The love of God is ….. a Valentine gift!
Happy Valentine’s Day
God’s daughter
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