I was Made to Feel Your LOVE

Lately I've really been captured by God's intimacy. The past couple of weeks I have found myself drawn so deep into finding exactly how He loves me and who He made me to be. I haven't updated in a while because I have been so overwhelmed by Him that I haven't quite been able to find the words to describe what I've been experiencing.

Tonight as I was preparing to go to sleep, Holy Spirit urged me to get out my notebook and write. I was playing around on Facebook and my first reaction was, "oh, I don't really feel like it right now. I'm just chillin' a little before bed...and besides, there's nothing in my head but a bunch of people's status updates about their weekends." Then Abba's voice came in and said, "Jamie...I want to tell you something."

...well, I've learned that when Abba tells me (or ANYONE for that matter) that He has something to say, it's ALWAYS DEFINITELY to my (or your!) benefit to LISTEN.

So I got out my notebook and stared at it for a few minutes...poised and ready for Holy Spirit to deliver me this message that interrupted Facebook creeping time haha.

He told me to just write what was on my heart. Ok....so I started writing about the day, things that bothered me, things that I liked...and then He began to reveal to me my heart.

...now, when God reveals your heart to you...it's without a veil. The WHOLE truth is exposed, good, bad AND ugly. But He's so graceful and gentle. And in the end, He places in front of you this gorgeous, new beating heart pumped full to the brim with His perfect, clean LOVE.

So I've learned to just let Him expose.

What He told me tonight was the very culmination of these past couple of weeks with Him. He wrote it thru me in a first person perspective in the form of revelation that began with THANKING Him for who I am...something I've never done before.

Below is what He told me.

"thank You for making me exactly who i am. thank You for expressing Yourself thru me the way You do! thank You so much for creating me with love and planning every part of me; my personality, my gifts, my body, my soul, my spirit, my heart, my mind--everything, Abba. thank You because You didn't carelessly create me as an after-thought. i'm not a failed mix of all the leftover, rejected parts that's only semi-pleasing if nothing better is around to choose from...like potted meat haha!

i'm Your favorite, Your very FIRST choice, that You put together carefully, thoughtfully, meticulously, lovingly, with all the best ingredients. i'm Your favorite character from Your favorite story; Your sweetest melody from Your most precious song. You never get tired of me or tell me to become something better because i'm not good enough being who i am. i'm never Your last choice. i'm not dirty or broken to You--i'm beautiful and spotless. You love me and made me on purpose and You've been madly in love with me since before the foundation of the world. it has ALWAYS been Your purpose to love me, to give me good gifts from Your heart, to USE me in Your kingdom---naturally and supernaturally. i've NEVER had to DO anything for Your love; i was created by Your love and birthed into it. i've always been surrounded by it and NEVER want to reject it. and You will NEVER reject me. You correct me when i'm wrong--but i'm never not good enough, not matter what i do.

You love me.

You love the way i pray; You love the way i ask for Your heart and break down when You reveal it to me; You love the way i love, the way i laugh, the way i smile, the way i sing, the way i say Your name, the way i dance, the way i write, the way i read, the way i cry, the way i smell, the way i dress, the way i give, the way i delight in Your gifts (which AMAZE me, by the way), the way i talk about You; the way i love YOU, the way i spend time with You and yearn for You; You love the way i want to know ALL of You."

After the last word, I had to go back and re-read what I had just written because Holy Spirit just flowed thru my hand so fast I didn't totally have time to take it in.

After I read it, I just sat in amazement...THIS is what God sees when He looks at me, who He hears when He talks with me...who He loves every second of my existence. And this is HOW He loves me. Just as I am, because it's the way He made me.

Again, I'm left speechless and overwhelmed by God's love. The things He told me are for me...but they are also for you. He loves EVERY one of us this way. Uniquely for who we are, wholly because He is perfect, and as Heidi Baker says, "we're ALL God's favorite! He looks at us and says, 'you're my favorite!' then looks at the next one and says, 'you're my favorite!'"

I encourage all of you to ask Abba, "How do You see ME? How do You love ME?"

I promise you will not be let down.

And the thing I find most amazing of ALL is that thru this whole...journey, if you will...of finding God's love, tho I'm learning more about myself...God still manages to do two more incredible things: He's teaching me more and more about Himself everyday AND He's causing me to fall SO madly and deeply in love with Him...all by telling me who I am to Him. Only a God like HIM could do such a thing.

How Deep the Father's Love for us...

God is wrecking my world and i couldn't be more happy to get rid of everything i thought was "truth" in exchange for ACTUAL truth....

i was talking with Him today about love and worth and i asked Him why so often i feel like i need to prove myself to people in almost everything i do.

the first thing He told me is that it's a lie of the enemy to make us believe we must prove ourselves worthy and worthy to be loved, even by God.

...the next thing He told me left me COMPLETELY overwhelmed and began a total shift and overhaul of my worldview, which i am now realizing has been fully corrupted from the very core and i have been blind to it.

He said that we have NOTHING to prove and we don't even realize it.

He said that we had nothing to prove to Jesus to make Him love us so much that He would become a human and allow Himself to be brutally murdered by His very creation...

Jesus did it before we were created, before we had a chance to know Him then chose to deny Him, be ashamed of Him, allow ourselves to be overcome by sin and in turn cry out for healing from the very Man we denied.

we had and HAVE nothing to prove because He decided to do this not even just before we were created, but before He laid the very foundations of this world. simply because of His unimaginable and incomparably great LOVE for us (eph. 1:3-5).

it overwhelmed me SO much because i realized that all the lies of the enemy had been exploited in my life by the way i allowed myself to be treated by broken people who were looking to prove to THEMSELVES their own worth, which had been attacked just as i had been. i didn't realize that i have nothing to prove to anyone because everything i was believing was being sifted thru a corrupted filter given to me by this world. it was all so subtle that i didn't even recognize it happening!

He also revealed to me that even as women we get attacked by this SO much in such a MESSED UP way! i think it's because the enemy tells us somewhere in there that because we were created after adam we aren't loved as much and so we must constantly assert ourselves to "become" worthy and lovable.

but we, all of us...men AND women alike, are worthy of GOD and His love. we are worthy because He has called us sons and daughters and made us worthy.

and when Jesus died, all of creation felt the Father's broken heart...over Jesus...and over US...because we are Jesus' inheritance. HE CHOSE US. we have NOTHING to prove to each other, to ourselves..not even to GOD.

i think once we understand this, we will stop allowing ourselves to be deceived by the subtle lies the enemy tells us thru the broken circumstances of this world.

"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God. Therefore, the world does not know us, because it did not know Him." 1 John 3:1