John 13:23 “One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved,* was reclining at Jesus’ side.” This episode is about how much you are loved by Jesus. It also has 5 practical steps you could take if you find it difficult to accept God's love. These practical steps came from an article by Kara J. Lovett called “5 Keys to Accepting God’s Love.” Here is where you can find this article-- https://karajlovett.com/5-keys-to-accepting-gods-love/ (below in episode notes you can click on the link.) Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
You Are Loved By Jesus
John 13:23 “One of his disciples, the one whom Jesus loved,* was reclining at Jesus’ side.”
This scripture verse was given at my prayer group, and the following words of prophecy were given with it: “You are also the one whom Jesus loves. So, your place is to be listening to his heartbeat when you pray. So, put your head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat. Say I love you and be at peace.” Is there anything more calming than putting your head on someone’s chest and listening to their heartbeat? I picture when I was little, and if I was scared, I went to lie with my parents. Just putting my head on their chest and listening to their heartbeat would make me feel better; it seemed so rhythmic and soothing.
“You are also the one whom Jesus loves.” How many of you believe this? Like, truly, in the depths of your heart, believe this? You are also the one whom Jesus loves. Sometimes it is easy to say that Jesus is love. It is easy to say that Jesus loves everyone. And yet, even as we are saying it, we are discounting ourselves from that love. We know He loves everyone, and yet we don’t believe that he loves us. We don’t feel that love or even understand why He would love us. Who are we to be loved by Jesus?
You are the son or daughter of the one true king; that is who you are. You were made in the likeness and image of God. You are deeply loved by Him. Why do you discount yourself from that love? Or maybe you put a lot of pressure on yourself to be worthy enough of God’s love. Maybe you think that if you just do things perfectly, then God will love you. If you attend mass every week and volunteer for every fundraiser, then you will be worthy of God’s love. Are you constantly feeling like you are not good enough for God’s love?
Guess what, none of us are. None of us are worthy of God’s love, and yet he lavishes it on us freely anyway. You do not have to do anything to earn God’s love. Well, as I wrote that, what came to mind was we do have to accept it. God can tell us all day long that he loves us, but if we don’t accept it, then it doesn’t matter. Yesterday I talked about abiding in God’s love and how abide means acceptance. Can you accept God’s love? Can you accept that he loves you just as you are, no strings attached?
This is a new kind of love for so many. Some people have never had someone in their lives who loved them completely, with no strings attached. Unconditional love is not a thing they even knew. If you are struggling to believe that Jesus loves you, just as you are, think about your childhood and your past relationships. What do you think of when you think about love? Did you have to earn love growing up? What did you feel you had to do to be loved? For instance, did you have to get good grades, be a certain weight, be quieter, etc? Did you feel like your parents' love was conditional on your behavior? If so, don’t worry, you are not alone.
We live in a broken world, and we don’t know how to love each other unconditionally like our heavenly father does. I think everyone is doing the best they can. We can only love others to the extent that we are loved. If your parents did not know unconditional love, then they can’t pass it down to you. The good news is that you can learn to let Jesus’s love in. The good news is that Jesus does love us unconditionally. If we can learn to accept Jesus’s love, then we can learn to pass this love on to others, even if that is not the love we were raised with.
If accepting God’s love is something you struggle with, I would love to give you some practical tips for how you can begin to accept God’s love. I went online to see if others had already written about his subject. I found an article written by Kara J. Lovett called “5 Keys to Accepting God’s Love.” I would highly suggest you read this article. I will put a link for it in the description of this episode, but you can easily find it by googling 5 Keys to Accepting God’s Love. https://karajlovett.com/5-keys-to-accepting-gods-love/ In the article, she goes into what God says about love, and then a section on understanding God’s love.
Her article mentions five ways you can accept God’s love. They are as follows: Accepting God’s love with scripture, prayer, grace, quietness & in unexpected places Kara says in her article that “by digging deep into Scripture and spending time with God in prayer, I realized that I need to stop striving for love and instead strive to accept God’s love, which He has already graciously bestowed on me.” As I mentioned yesterday, reading through the bible is a great way to get to know what God’s love is like. You can see many examples of God’s love in the bible. 1 John 4:7-10 is a great example of love. It says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
The second way she mentions is prayer. When we turn to God and ask for His help, he wants to help us, and is just waiting for us to ask. God knows what we are going through and what our struggles are, and yet he loves it when we talk to Him about them. Just sit down with a cup of coffee or tea and talk to God like you are talking to your best friend at the kitchen table. You will be surprised how much closer you get to God when you start having chats with Him on a more regular basis. They can be informal chats about your day, your struggles, and your successes. God wants to share in all of that with you.
The third way she mentions is Grace. Man, learning about grace over these last few years has really been huge for me. Learning to be graceful with yourself is so important. Kara says that grace is the free, unearned gift of salvation that God has bestowed upon us. When I looked up the definition online, it said 1a: unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification. b: a virtue coming from God. c: a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine assistance. We are saved and redeemed through God’s grace. It is unmerited, meaning we don’t deserve it, we can’t do anything to earn it, it is just bestowed upon us. How amazing is that? The third definition said a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine assistance. We can’t forget this. We are made holy through divine assistance. God is always there to help us. We can’t do any of this on our own. It is always a partnership. God has so much grace and mercy for us. He doesn’t expect us to be perfect, so cut yourself some slack.
The fourth way to accept God’s love is through quietness. Spend some quiet time with God. There are so many ways that you can do this. Maybe you are someone who likes to meditate every morning. That is wonderful! Maybe you are like me, and every time you try to quiet your mind, all it wants to do is talk to you. That’s fine too. Maybe your quiet time is spent in nature, going for a walk, or sitting outside listening to the sounds of nature. Maybe your quiet time with God is spent journaling all your thoughts. There is no right way to spend quiet time with God. Your relationship with God is like any other relationship; the more time you spend together, the closer you will be.
The fifth key to accepting God’s love for Kara was letting go of control. Even though we know at some level that we don’t have to earn God’s love, we still try to prove to Him that we love Him. We put all these rules and regulations on ourselves about how we have to do this and we have to do that. We tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Once Kara was able to let go of control and remember that Jesus already secured our freedom on the cross, she decided to let go of all the pressure she put on herself and just tried to abide in Jesus’s love.
God loves you! He truly does. I hope that if you are not currently able to accept God’s love, you will spend some time working on learning how to. I can’t tell you how amazing it is to know that I am always loved. To know that there is nothing I can do that would make my heavenly father stop loving me. It gives me so much more confidence in life. It brings me so much joy. It breaks my heart when I talk with people who don’t know how much God loves them. I know it is hard to let love in sometimes. I have been there before. It can be hard, it can take a lot of work, and it is so worth it. There is so much more waiting for you once you accept and really come to know God’s love for you. It is there for the taking, free, with no strings attached. All you have to do is say yes and accept it!
Dear Heavenly Father, I am so thankful that you love us unconditionally. You love us so completely. Lord, some of us are struggling to feel this love. We ask you right now to come into our hearts and fill them with your love, perfect love. We ask that you begin to break down any walls that we have put up to keep love out. Lord, we want all the love that you have for us. Lord, I ask that you bless everyone listening to this with a supernatural feeling of love today. That the Holy Spirit descends on all of them and that they can physically feel you giving them a hug today. Lord, you are so amazing. We are in awe of all that you do each and every day. We pray that you help our loved ones to open up and feel your love. Lord, we pray that you shower your love on all the teenagers. Being a teen is so difficult, and many do not feel any love. Please show them how amazing your love is, Lord. We ask all of this in accordance with your holy will and in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I felt this was a good episode for Good Friday today, more than any other day, Jesus shows his love for us. He died on the cross for us. He died on the cross for you. He loves you. Will you let Him in? I look forward to meeting you here again on Monday. I hope you have a very blessed Easter weekend. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in October 2024 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “I have a picture in my mind of Jesus and Mary holding each of our hands, and we're like a little child skipping away, skipping along, and it's a white path and they say, “Stay with us, and we will lead you to home.”