Get the app9 Common Lies Christians Believe: Part 2 Of 3Sample
Have you ever felt as though God doesn’t like you? Maybe you feel like He doesn’t care about you. These are lies.
God loves you with a perfect love. He is motivated by, and acts upon His agape love for His creation. Agape is a Greek word for an ultimate self-sacrificing kind of love. Agape love is the kind that is always associated with the love of God and the way He extends that perfect love toward His creation. It’s a type of love that we’ll never know or experience apart from God. We can’t get it from others, because a natural, human kind of love falls short of agape love.
Most relationships are built on an if/then kind of love, better known as conditional love. If you do what I want you to do, then I will love you. If you love me, then I will love you back. In contrast, God’s love is unconditional. He loves us even when we mess up. He has the ability to love those who do not even love Him back.
It is a love that God extended to us when we didn’t deserve it. He gives it to us and doesn’t expect us to pay it back, because we never could. It is truly an unconditional kind of love. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. (Romans 5:8)
You don’t have to try really hard to get God to like you, because He already deeply, perfectly, unconditionally loves you. He loved you before you ever had a chance to do things for Him. He even loved you before He created you. Take a minute to wrap your mind around that little nugget of truth.
You think God doesn’t care about you? He loved you before He created you! “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:4– 5).
Questions for Reflection:
What does agape mean? Is that understanding of love foreign or familiar to you?
Truth: You don’t have to work really hard to get God to like you, because God already perfectly loves you.
About this Plan
Maybe God isn’t who you think He is. Maybe He’s much better. This devotional will help identify some Christian clichés we’ve all heard that are actually unbiblical lies. These clichés may seem innocent, but are harmful to our faith and keep far too many believers stuck in spiritual immaturity. Learn to encounter these lies with the truths about God in the Bible, to bring encouragement and freedom to our lives.
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