Inside Out: A 40 Day Journey to Transforming Your HeartSample

God’s Love in My Heart

Surgery is not always about just taking something out like a tumor or our intestines. Surgery may also be about putting something into us to help us experience life more fully. It may be a new kidney, heart, or blood infusion. God’s surgery on us requires both removing and inserting. He removes our sinful tendencies from our hearts when we invite Him to do so. He also infuses our hearts with His unconditional love so that we will continue to have our hearts tethered to His. When we know that He loves us and we can tangibly experience His love, our hearts long to be transformed to become just like Him. The more we become like Him, the more we will experience the fullness of God. 

After traveling the world to 30 countries as a missionary, I have come to believe that the two greatest desires of people in any culture are: to be fully known (all of our good and all of our bad) as well as fully loved (there are no conditions placed on receiving it.) This love is impossible to experience outside of Christ. He is the only one who knows us better than we know ourselves. He is the one who knows the depravity in our hearts, and He was the one willing to die for it.  He is the one who opens His arms, again and again, saying, “Come to Me. I love you. Experience My love. It will forever change you.” Jesus forgives fully without looking back.  He loves extravagantly without requiring it in return.  He showers grace on us when we deserve judgment. The Beatles had it right when they wrote the lyrics, “All you need is love. Love! Love is all you need.” Our greatest need is Jesus’ love in our hearts. 

We may know that Jesus loves us, for the Bible tells us so, but how can we experience His love deep in our hearts? Ephesians 3:16-19 says, “That according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up with all the fullness of God.”  This extremely long sentence which is the Apostle Paul’s prayer to the church in Ephesus, is packed with spiritual truth, that when understood, can change our hearts forever. 

God wants us to be strengthened by His Spirit, who lives inside us, to understand the depth of Christ’s love for us fully. The Spirit will help us experientially know Christ’s love in a way beyond human understanding and human ability. We won’t be able to articulate it. His love is all-consuming, ever-flowing, always present. We can’t run from it. When Paul says we are to try to grasp how high, deep, and wide Christ’s love is, He wants us to picture ourselves so securely placed in Christ that we will experience the fullness of God’s unimaginable presence and fullness. 

Though our hearts are deceitful, the Holy Spirit can bring us hope by pouring God’s unconditional love into our hearts.  We are forgiven. We are chosen. We have been given grace and mercy.  He has a plan for our lives.  When we experience God’s love, our focus is solely on Him, and our sinful nature no longer consumes us. Christ’s love transforms our hearts from the inside out. Let us rest in His love today.

Take a Moment:

• Meditate on how much Christ loves you. Sit in His presence for five more minutes (set a timer even) and invite the Holy Spirit to help you experience Christ’s, all-consuming love. Allow it to flow over you and consume you. 

• Knowing His love is available for you at any moment and without restraint, how can you rest more often in His love to help your heart stay focused on Him? 

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Spirit that has been placed in my life to help me comprehend and experience the love of Christ. May Christ’s love consume me in such a way that my desires completely change. I want to be so overwhelmed by His love that my focus is on Him and Him alone. Amen.