To Know AND To Feel

Do you feel loved by God or do you just know that you are? I lived in “the knowing” for most of my life. How could I deny it, and embrace the cross at the same time? It wasn’t possible, because this IS love,  that He laid down His life for me.
But, I didn’t feel loved because I had too many soul wounds to be healed from, and too many lies needing to be removed from my thinking.
“For God so loved the world.” As just one person in the whole wide world, it didn’t seem personal to me, because I thought of myself as only a drop in the bucket. My mind needed to be renewed in order to appreciate my own value.
“Being fearfully and wonderfully made” did not help either. I took that to mean that God was a Master craftsman (which He indeed is) and not that I was special in any way. Again, I needed my mind renewed to be able to see myself as He sees me, but the wounding and lies were blocking that reality from my view.
Reading the Word and believing it (mentally ascending to it as being true) without our mind’s being renewed, is like reading a sterile letter. If the reader is unsure of God’s love for them, then no Life is transferred, and the true meaning is lost.
After many decades of soul healing, and opening up to the Master by seeking His heart and mind in all things, I began to lay my own former perspectives down. Then, the trickle of His love began to soften my heart, until it became a steady and gently flowing stream.
The biggest thing that broke the dams in my soul was when I received a breakthrough deliverance from fear and anxiety which had plagued me for as far back as I can remember and it has been grueling. (This happened only a few weeks ago.)
This breakthrough  has been tested by many situations in my life since then, and has been found true.
One situation in particular, which was so serious with it’s potential for harm and danger, concerned someone I love dearly; my own flesh and blood. If it had happened before my breakthrough, it would have devastated me, rendering me mentally and emotionally paralyzed, from the effects of fear for a minimum of 3 days. I may have even carried it for the rest of my life! But I realized that I only had deep concern, but that I WAS NOT consumed by fear!!! And this was a miracle!!!
“Perfect love casts out fear!” I have  trusted and depended on His love for me to do this for me, and was finally beginning to see evidence of it on the inside.
Today, I can not only know He loves me, but I can feel it. In fact, I can say I carry it on the inside of me, and because of that I can know for certain that everything is going to be alright.
If you have been plagued with a wounded soul, and fear and anxiety have been your traveling companions, look to the Lord for your blessed healing and deliverance. If you have not really felt the love of God for you, and turn to Him for it, then rest assured, He’s on it!!!! He will answer your prayer, and one day, if you surrender to the process of the cleansing fire, you will come out on the other side, not just knowing, with mental ascent, but beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are loved by your Father. You will feel like a cherished son or daughter. That, in itself, will impact the rest of your life forever and ever.

Psalm 105

It Was, and Now Is

A trusted and faithful brother in the Lord once advised me, by saying, “Don’t go digging in your own garden.” When he said that, I knew I had been so caught up, most of my life, in self-analysis, digging around on the inside of me, (the garden of my soul) that I understood completely what he meant. It was loving counsel to try and help me stop doing what only God can and should do.
Of course, Paul tells us to “examine ourselves” but that was to “see if we are in the faith” and not to inspect ourselves in the way that I had become accustomed. It wasn’t serving me well; in fact, it was destroying me.
My thought had been that if only I could find the error of my ways, I could change them, and then I’d be happy. (Buzzer sound!!! NOT!!!)
As Christ and His Word has grown in me, I discovered that He is the only Gardener,  who knows how to inspect fruit and reveal it to me. My only part, then, is to lay that rotten fruit at His feet in confession, and let Him change it into fresh, pretty, and nourishing fruit. I can’t do that no matter how much I think I know and see.
By nature, I love to analyze and fix things, so this has been a challenge for me. It seems like it’s been a cycle of holding on and letting go as I walk with Him. Couldn’t I just make a suggestion? Stop it!!!! Don’t dig in your garden!!! Let Him do what only He can do, and do perfectly, I tell myself.
This morning this truth was reinforced as I came across this Scripture from Heb. 10:14-“....by One sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
Wow! This mind-blowing truth is awesome! He has already made me perfect at the cross. It was finished! And, at the same time, I am being made holy! The thing that was accomplished in the past, is being worked out in the present in my life! I am being made holy! Without my involvement, except to respond to what He shows me, as He walks with me and talks with me, in the Garden. What a fascinating God! What a faithful God! What a laboring God! What a loving God!
Christ in me; the hope of glory!!!! Selah.