God’s Love in Shooting Stars and Rollerblades

The difference between a true relationship with God and religion is understanding just how much God loves you.

This one fact is the whole of the Christian dynamic. Religion says you have to take steps toward God before He can love you. But the Bible says our moving toward God is secondary. We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). God is the great Initiator. He is the Husbandman. He woos us to Himself; and even after we are saved, His love continues to pursue us—He reaches toward us to bring us joy and peace, financial help, health, and so much more.

God’s love changed the way I saw His Word, the Bible. For twenty-two years, I read the Word and saw law. I saw God’s commands as limitations on my life. I saw His discipline as punishment for my behavior. I didn’t understand why He did and said the things He did. But when I began to understand His love, my perspective changed. I began to see His commands as protection, His discipline as correction. Every time I read the Word now, I discover another verse about God’s love.

While we were in Russia, the Lord spoke to our hearts about focusing our teaching on His love. “Tell the people of Russia I love them,” God said. “Tell them that I am not a communist God. I am not a dictator. I am not a father who abuses or abandons them. I am the God who loves them.” So we began putting red hearts next to each verse that demonstrated His love. Now, we can hardly turn a page in either of our Bibles without seeing red! First John 4:8 tells us that “God is love,” but when we don’t know what love is—what it looks like or how it behaves—neither do we know who God is, what He looks like, or how He behaves.

First Corinthians gives us this definition of love:

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

For many years, this passage of Scripture was my “to-love” list. In it were all the attributes I felt I needed to truly love someone— or evaluate their love for me. It wasn’t until I began rebuilding my life on the foundational truths of God’s Word that I realized that Paul was actually describing God’s kind of love toward me. God’s love toward me is patient and kind. His love never behaves rudely or becomes provoked. His love never devises evil to teach me a lesson, instead it rejoices when I understand the truth. God’s love endured all things for my sake, and His love will never fail. That is the definition of love—the definition of God—and that is what His grace is built upon.

Everything God wants to do in your life comes from His nature of love. Years ago, Carrie and I introduced this concept to a group of pastors in Russia. We were teaching in a church called Della Vera (which means “Works of Faith”) and discovered that the whole of their doctrine revolved around that idea. To them, Christianity was a life spent repaying God for all He had done to secure eternal salvation for them. As ministers, Carrie and I were trying to express God’s love for and grace toward these pastors apart from their works, but it was like plowing rock. They just didn’t get it. We kept saying things like, “God loves you. He wants relationship with you. He doesn’t love you for what you can do for Him. He’s not interested in the size of your church or the number of service projects you host each year. He loves you.” We shared hundreds of Scriptures illustrating these points with them, but for three days our words fell like lead on their ears.

Eventually, the Word broke through that hardness of heart, and we saw the revelation of God’s love work amazing things in their lives, and over the course of time, in their churches. But that weekend taught us just how hard it is to receive grace—or see God’s promises work in our lives—when we don’t understand how much He loves us. Without love, grace is a foreign word.

Grace (which we will discuss in more detail later) is the unmerited favor and love of God. It is His influence and power in our lives, His working on our behalf. It is all the good things we receive from God independent of our worth or worthiness. In a nutshell, the grace of God is Jesus. Yet how many Christians say they have a revelation of Jesus—a revelation of God’s love—but feel unworthy or unqualified to receive the rest of His blessings? They are deceived. You cannot truly understand God’s love and think like that.

Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare His own Son,” speaking of God sacrificing Jesus on our behalf, “but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Too many people are satisfied with forgiveness. For them, “salvation” is about their eternal resting place and that is enough. If they have to deal with sickness or fear or poverty or depression between now and then, “at least they’re on their way to heaven.” We meet too many people who think they shouldn’t ask God for more. “He’s done enough,” they say.

But forgiveness is just the first page of our love story with God! Salvation is more than forgiveness. It’s more than just redemption from sin—though that is a wonderful benefit. Salvation is experiencing the zoe life of God—life that embraces wholeness in spirit, soul, and body. Salvation is real life. It’s forgiveness, redemption, healing, peace, prosperity, sanctification, and so much more! True salvation is living in our inheritance of love.

Our spiritual inheritance is something many Christians misunderstand. They think of it as something they get after they die and go to Heaven. But no one gets an inheritance when they die! We receive an inheritance when Someone else died. Jesus died so that you and I could receive our spiritual inheritance right now. We don’t have to wait for Heaven to know wisdom and peace. We don’t have to wait for Heaven to experience healing. Walking the streets of gold is not the only place we can have prosperity (1 Corinthians 1:7).

As wonderful as Heaven will be, it is only part of our spiritual inheritance in Christ. Let’s look again at what Paul wrote to the Ephesian church: “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:16-19 NIV).

According to Scripture, everything God has—His “fullness”— is our spiritual inheritance. A true revelation of that should birth within us a hunger to experience all His goodness, not just in the life to come, but in this life as well. It is not selfish to want to know God. It is not greed to desire to walk in the fullness of His promises. The writer of Psalm 84 says, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield… no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11). Christ’s death and resurrection enabled us to walk uprightly before God. So according to this verse we should expect that God will not withhold good from us.

What confidence the love of God brings! God’s love allows us to approach Him for anything we need, not because of our righteous- ness, but because of His grace. We are God’s children (Hebrews 4:16); and just like our children don’t need permission to approach us, we don’t need permission to approach God. If my son were to visit me at work, it wouldn’t matter what meeting I was in or who I was talking to, nothing could keep him from me. He would boldly barge into my office shouting, “Hey, Dad!” He would fearlessly climb into my lap and hug my neck. He knows no matter what is going on I’ll receive him.

The same is true when we walk into the throne room of God. We don’t need to fear entering His presence. We don’t need permission to approach Him. He is our Father (Hebrews 4:16). Nothing can come between us. No one can keep us apart. We don’t need a special song or anointing to receive from Him. He is not withholding His love, His Spirit, or His blessings from us.

The Scriptures declare that God’s love “has been shed abroad in our hearts” (Romans 5:5 KJV). But many Christians fail to see God’s love personally. They know He loved the world enough to send His Son, but it’s not enough to know God loved the world. We need to know He loves us.

It’s not enough to know God rescued Daniel from the lion’s den. We need to know He will rescue us. It’s not enough to know Jesus healed the blind man. We need to know that Jesus offers that same healing to us. Jesus paid for our blindness and healing on the cross. He tasted death—and all that entails—so we could walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4). God did not love us just enough to offer redemption; He threw His love around like confetti! And like confetti, His love touches every part of our lives. God is not far away. He is not removed from our circumstance.

When the enemy whispers that our faith isn’t working, we need to remind ourselves of God’s love. We need to remind ourselves of all God provided for us in Christ. We need to start speaking God’s love over our situations and relationships, over our hearts. Let Love remind us of First John 4:16, “God is love,” and First Corinthians 13:8, “Love never fails,” to the point it stirs up our faith. Because “God is love” and “Love never fails,” God never fails. His promises are true. They are declarations of His love toward us. We don’t have to know the future or figure out where the money for new brakes is coming from. We know our life is in God’s hands, and like a child, we can simply rest in our Father’s love. Theologian and pastor John Piper said, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in God.”

One of our favorite things to do is spend time with our children without agenda, plan, or schedule. It’s in those moments when the wonder and beauty of life shines brightest. When our son comes to us with a new scientific discovery, we don’t cringe or roll our eyes. We don’t dismiss his excitement. When he says, “Mom, Dad, check out that cloud! Did you know the sky isn’t really blue? It only looks that way because light scatters.” We respond, “We know, buddy. Isn’t creation amazing?”

God does that too. He loves being around His children. He doesn’t cringe or roll His eyes when we pray. He doesn’t dismiss our concerns or our excitement. He desires to meet our needs and spend time with us. It blesses God when we trust Him for our futures when we come to Him with our questions. He loves hearing our ideas—even the stupid ones. He loves celebrating our discoveries. It’s all part of developing a love-relationship with Him. Relationship takes time. It is a process. But it is how a solid life foundation begins.

When our daughter, Elliana, was young, we told her of Jesus’ love by highlighting God’s love toward her in everyday life. Whenever she received a birthday present or there was an answer to prayer, we’d say, “Look how much Jesus loves you!” Once while we were in Russia, Ellie saw a bunch of kids rollerblading. She wanted to join in but didn’t have any rollerblades. “I want some,” she told me pointing toward the group. And while I should have told her to ask God, all I said was, “Maybe someday you will.”

Later that day, our interpreter came over to our home and said, “My daughter grew out of her rollerblades, and I thought Ellie might like them.” I couldn’t believe it! She had just asked for rollerblades. I turned to Ellie and said, “Look how much Jesus loves you!”

Unfortunately, the rollerblades didn’t fit, and Ellie was terribly disappointed. We tried to encourage her, but three-year-olds don’t understand blessings that you have to wait for. Long story short, just before midnight our translator returned. “I felt so bad the skates didn’t fit, I bought Elliana new ones.” He had bought her a helmet and pads, too. What a blessing! When Ellie saw her gift, she didn’t even say thank you. She just squealed and ran around in circles saying, “Look how much Jesus loves me!”

God wants to lavish His love on us like that. Not that we’ll all get rollerblades, but there are issues in your life and questions in your heart that God wants to answer. He wants to show up and show off— not just in big miracles but through the little things as well.

Out on the plains where the sky is big and city lights are far away, falling stars seem almost magical. When I was growing up, every falling star was like a whisper from God saying, “I love you, Carrie.”

I saw thousands of them until I moved to the smog-filled skies of St. Petersburg, Russia. One night while I was home visiting my family, my sister and I went out for a walk.

As we walked, she said, “You know, I’ve never seen a falling star.” “Really? That’s how God tells me He loves me,” I responded.

“I want to see a falling star!”

“Okay,” I said without thinking. “Let’s find one.” As we walked, I prayed, God, help! She needs to know You love her, but I can’t make this happen.

A few moments later, my sister gasped, “I just saw a falling star! God loves me!”

“He sure does!” I replied.

“I want to see how much He really loves me,” she said. Thirty seconds later I heard her gasp again. This time as I looked to the sky, I saw a huge comet streak across it in flames of yellow, blue, and green. “Wow!” we both said. “God really loves me!”

Beloved, God loves you and He wants to express His love to you in a personal way. Let Him love you—even when it feels foolish or “unspiritual.” Jesus told the disciples that unless they humbled themselves like a little child, they could not experience the Kingdom of God (Matthew 18:3). Let’s believe God. Let’s come to Him as a child and let Him lavish us with His love. Let’s experience His Kingdom.