You Are Loved

I recently found this extract on the SALT club's blog, and I thought that maybe I should share it here :)

You Are Loved

A counsellor was conducting a family therapy session with the parents of a teenager who had been caught using drugs. The parents excused their daughters' drug use, saying that it was no big deal and just a phase that most teenagers go through. After a while the counsellor told the parents to leave the room and, turning to the daughter, asked her what she had heard. She replied, "I heard that they don't love me."

The counsellor realised that the daughter was dabbling in drugs to get her parents' attention. If she had felt genuinely loved by them, she would have wanted to love them back by choosing not to disobey.

Like that daughter, I often disobey my heavenly Father. My sin distresses me, and I beg God to help me love Him more. While this isn't a bad thing to pray, Paul says that it's even more important that we understand how much God loves us. Only when we appreciate "how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is" will we be eager to love him back (Ephesians 3: 18).

Consider the many ways God continually loves you. He overcame incalculable odds just to bring you into existence, and ever since then He has sustained your life with food, family and friendship. He gave His life for you, dying on the cross so you might live with Him forever.

He didn't go to all this trouble to let you drift away, so He "disciplines those He loves, and He punishes each one He accepts as His child" (Hebrews 12:6). No child enjoys boundaries and discipline, but imagine how you'd feel if God didn't care. God loves you too much to shrug at your sin, so rejoice when you feel His firm hand of discipline. It means you are loved.

- Plate (taken from this month's issue of ODJ)