Fulfilling Your Purpose: How Knowing Who You Are Can Change Your World Sample

You are called to love. It’s one of the fundamental truths of the gospel—God is love (1 John 4:8, 16); God sent his Son to us because of his love (John 3:16); and the Son sends us into the world in the same spirit (John 20:21). If we are to represent our Father well, we must know how to love, and we must demonstrate that love to those around us. Words, miracles, and knowledge are not enough; if we get everything right but forget to fill our works with love, we are nothing but noisemakers (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Loving others is a fruit of the Spirit and the core of the message we believe.

Even so, many Christians become so focused on trying to love others (and failing) that they forget where love comes from in the first place. We cannot reflect God’s true and deep love without having fully received it first. If we try to, we’ll only burn out. If our efforts to be selfless cause us to neglect our self, we’ll have nothing to give. Before we ever know how to love, we have to know how to be loved.

Your ability to love the world depends entirely on the degree to which you see yourself as loved by the Father. Maybe you have thought it selfish to dwell on the Father’s delight in you, but you have little to offer the world until you grasp this. We love because he first loved us. That’s how it works. You can only impart what you have. If you haven’t received supernatural love, you can’t give it away. If you don’t know how he delights in you, you can’t delight in others in any way that transforms them. The best thing you can do for those around you is to bathe in the Father’s love yourself. Only then will it flow out of you and draw others into his open arms.

Prayer: Father, let me see myself the way you see me. Open my heart to receive the height, depth, width, and breadth of your love. Bathe me in your delight so I can delight in others with your love. Amen.