I remember reading the book of Daniel and seeing how many times an angel tells Daniel that he is highly favored or dearly loved. I thought it would be awesome to have God tell you that. Then, I realized how many times He has told me that I am His treasure. Talking with Butch about it, he related how he had been thinking of this when God said, “That’s how I feel about you, too. That’s how I see you.”
It’s so hard for us to really, really, deep down in our hearts, grasp this. That of all that He owns, all that He created, all that He is….you are a treasure to Him. You are dearly loved and highly favored. Our humanness makes us pause with a certain embarrassment, so to speak, when we say God told us that. And, we feel like we can’t say it because….well…because we really don’t deserve it.
But, that’s the most wonderful thing of all. No! We don’t deserve it! I have done absolutely nothing glorious or brilliant enough to be called a treasure of the Most High God. There is nothing about me….nothing in me….nothing of me that deserves or earns the title of highly favored or dearly beloved. It’s all because of Him!
HE loves me! He LOVES me! He loves ME! Period. There is nothing I can do to make Him love me more. There is NOTHING I can do to make Him love me more. There is nothing I can DO to make Him love me more. There is nothing I can do to MAKE Him love me more. There is nothing I can do to make HIM love ME more. There is nothing I can do to make Him love me MORE!
Conversely, there is nothing I can do to make Him love me less.
If this doesn’t resonate deep within your soul….if you feel something rising up within you that you wish you could say that….if you feel that there is something you could do to make Him love you more or less….or, if you are ho-hum about it(yeah, I know the Bible tells me so)…..then you don’t really, really, deep down in your heart grasp the love of God. The passionate, extravagant, relentless love of our Savior.
Ask Him daily, hourly if need be, what He thinks of you. Do not stop until He answers. Trust me, He will. And, you will be blown away and forever changed.
“I bow my knees before the Father 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 with the fullness of God.” Eph. 3:14-18