Deep in love with Jesus

Sitting at Your feet is where I wanna be

I'm home when I am here with You

Ruined by Your grace, enamored by Your gaze

I can't resist the tenderness in You

I'm deep in love with You, Abba Father

I'm deep in love with You, Lord

My heart it beats for You, precious Jesus

I'm deep in love with You, Lord

These words from a song by Michael W Smith touch something deep within me. So often the love of God is very theoretical – we know it to be true but we don’t feel it. Yet love is an emotion and should be felt. It’s not a piece of information.

For years this was my situation. I knew in my head that God loved me. I could pray with great conviction God’s love for another but I just never felt it. I kept talking to God about this. I knew that if only I could feel God’s love, so much else would fall away; feelings of inadequacy, guilt, shame and condemnation. These just would not be able to exist in the warmth of God’s loving gaze.

At this point I just need to say that feelings are not a reliable indicator of truth. Feelings follow truth not the other way around. What do I mean by this?

 ‘Feelings are just feelings. Nothing else,’ my boss used to tell me. He is a Godly man but this saying drove me mad. My feelings were very important to me and I felt that they were a very accurate gauge of reality.  Over the years I discovered by painful circumstances that he was quite right. 

What he meant of course is that feelings are in fact a very poor indicator of both reality and truth. Feelings can make us slaves to lies and whilst I am not for a second suggesting we ignore feelings, they need to be used as what they are – a pointer to our emotional or physical condition at that moment. They can be a signpost to blessings or problems but they are not necessarily an indicator of truth.

‘I feel so alone and rejected’ shows our emotional state. The truth is that Jesus said He would never leave us or forsake us.  We are not alone or rejected. 

So feeling God’s love is vital because the truth is that God loves us so passionately, deeply and dearly that we will never fathom it. We ought to feel his love but so often our feelings condemn us. It is at that moment that declaring the truth is vital.

The truth is that God loves us. The truth is that we are his dearly beloved children. The truth is that we are the apple of his eye. The truth is that there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The truth is that we are saved by grace; there is nothing we can do to earn or keep God’s love. The truth is that as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

It was at this point I got my breakthrough. God had forgiven me but I had not forgiven myself. I still condemned myself for my many mistakes but if God had forgiven me, who was I to hold myself in the bondage of unforgiveness? As I released myself, the feelings followed the truth and I knew God loved me and I could feel it.  It was a wonderful moment.

Now, like Michael W Smith, I love to sit and enjoy God’s adoring gaze, to reflect on his great tenderness and acceptance of me; to know I never need to do anything to earn this love but I can just sit and bathe in it.  What a blessing to know that God will never reject me, abandon me or get cross with me. I am his precious child. Hallelujah!