I Am Loved

Just as I am

You welcome me

With open arms

How can this be

My guilt is undone

My past is untethered

I leave it behind

And run to my Father

There is no disappointment in Your eyes

There is no shame there is only pride

I am loved

Father I’m loved by You

So unreserved

Your heart for me

My fear is gone

I am set free

There’s nothing to hide

There’s nothing to measure

‘Cause I am Your child

And that’s all that matters

There is no disappointment in Your eyes

There is no shame there is only pride

I am loved

Father I’m loved by You

There is no distance in Your embrace

Over and over again You say

I am loved

Father I’m loved by You

You are changing everything

You are changing everything

I believe it

I receive it

You are changing everything

Can I just share with y’all what God’s been teaching me lately??

A couple of weeks ago, I took the enneagram test. For those of you that don’t know, the enneagram test is like a personality test that tells you more about yourself (strengths/weaknesses, etc.), but it also tells you about how you interact with others. The test determined that I am a 2. As I read the description, I did not expect it to hit me like it did. The one thing that stuck out to me about 2’s is their key motivation is to be loved by others. Not that other people don’t want to be loved, but it is a huge focus for 2’s. For most of my life, I thought of my desire to be loved as a negative thing. It led me to give pieces of myself away to people that didn’t deserve them, it led to me constantly wanting the approval of others, it led to me constantly putting others and their health before mine. But what God has been reminding me lately is that the desire to be loved is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it’s how we were created.

I was feeling kind of low last week, and I just wanted to watch a sermon about being loved. Since I was looking at the sermons of one church, I didn’t see any that specifically were about being loved, but something led me to click on a sermon that was titled “How To Be Free From Your Need For Approval”. I want to share my notes with you below:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” – Genesis 1:26.

We need to understand the way we were made to be in order to understand what we’re meant to be. We were patterned after the way that God is. So, if God is love and relationship, then we were created for love! God designed us to be recipients of perfect love, that’s why there’s something within us that likes approval. But often times, we seek approval from the wrong people and are left hurting as a result of imperfect love.

In Genesis 2, the first thing that God ever says to human beings is “you are free”. How beautiful is that? God isn’t forcing a relationship with Adam. He lets Adam do as he pleases, because a loving relationship isn’t controlling. Human relationships were meant to have the same dynamic as relationship with God.

When Eve is created, her and Adam are naked in the garden with absolutely no shame. They had never felt inadequate. Can you imagine? The time that they had in the garden was a feeling that so many of us wish we could feel, because many of us have spent our entire lives just trying to feel like there’s nothing wrong with us.

But look in Genesis 3! (This part of the sermon hit me hard.)

God comes down to walk and talk with Adam and Eve. That’s what the dynamic of His relationship was with them, He would come down from Heaven to be with them. But this time He comes down and they’re hiding. He asks them where they are, even though He KNOWS where they are. Adam responds to God saying “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” For years I read God’s response and didn’t really think much into it until this pastor made the connection. God responds to Adam and asks “Who told you that you were naked?” He’s asking Adam who told him that he needed to hide. He’s asking Adam who told him that he was inadequate, because it most certainly was not God.

This is where our feeling of not being good enough comes in. But this feeling distorts human relationships, because instead of just being able to give love (like Adam and Eve originally did), we now need the person we’re loving to make up for what we lack. That’s the beauty of Jesus coming, though. Jesus came so that we can still walk and talk with God, even if it’s not in the same way that it was in the garden.

So, in the Old Testament, the first thing that God says is “you are free”, but in the New Testament, the first thing that God says (in regards to Jesus) is “with you, I’m well pleased.” THAT is what God’s voice sounds like. Jesus went to hell and back to make us good enough; that’s why God doesn’t look at us and see our nakedness, He looks at us and sees us as being wrapped up into Christ! He doesn’t focus on our imperfections, all He sees is the perfection of Jesus. God gave us our approval way before we earned it. His approval was purchased for us by the blood of Jesus on the cross and receiving that changes how we act.

Love has been perfected in us, we need only to seek the one who has perfected it to feel it. Because when we don’t know our value, we look for the love and approval of others that cannot fulfill our desire to be loved. If I look at myself as a ’92 beat up Honda, if I look at myself as lesser than what God made me to be, then I’m going to feel the need for more attention from others. BUT, if I know that I’m a Ferrari, if I know what God REALLY says about me, then I’m not going to need the approval that a ’92 beat up Honda would.

That sermon started to open my eyes more to the way that I was created, and has been teaching me what I’m meant to be.

In addition to this sermon, Romans has been hitting me too. As I was thinking about this journal, I was looking through Pinterest for bible verses that talked about the love of God. Romans 5:8 came up. "But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." So, I opened my bible to Romans 5, and the verses surrounding verse 8 impacted me as well.

Peace with God Through Faith

5 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

God's love has been poured into our hearts. While we were STILL sinners, Christ died for us! Christ died for a bunch of undeserving sinners. Who else would do that for us?

How can I look at these verses and feel as if I'm unloved?

Romans 8:35-37 says "35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:“For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."

No trouble, no hardship, no persecution, no famine, no feeling of being inadequate, no danger, no sword, no NOTHING can separate us from the love of Christ. And, as someone who has been struggling with the desire to feel loved, I know that I can conquer the lies that Satan is trying to put in my brain.

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I'm so excited to be sharing this journal with y'all today. As I shared in my last journal, I went through a dry season for several months. I'm excited to be back in a season where I can see and feel growth, but I'm so grateful for the lessons I learned in that dry season.

I love y'all, and I'm planning for many more journals to come in the next few months!

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Link to take the enneagram test:

Link to the sermon:

Song: I Am Loved by Mack Brock