Meditate on My Love For You
Until we receive and understand the Father’s love for us, we will never be able to love others
It was evening, August 19th, 2009 and I was trying to fall asleep.
I had no idea my prayer life was about to be completely transformed.
I had spent the day dealing with a conflict within the prayer ministry I was leading. A friend of mine from seminary was in obvious sin, and when confronted, completely refused to repent.
Having banged my head against a wall all afternoon, my heart was sensitive to the power of self-deception blinding my friend. Sin lies to us, and makes us lie to ourselves, trapping us in the dark.
As I shared my frustrations with the Lord in prayer, I was reminded of how just a few weeks earlier, I had been blind, just like my friend. I had seriously wronged an older brother in the Lord. Thankfully, after several months, the Lord corrected me, and I apologized to my brother.
And yet, I trembled to think about the damage I had caused. In my zeal to do justice, I had actually committed injustice. In trying to do the right thing, I had actually made matters worse, causing real harm to an older brother in the Lord and even his whole family.
It was clear to me that I was not someone to be trusted.
The Likeness of the Father
As I tried to sleep that night, I found God was speaking to me. I needed to make myself available to Him. Gently stepping away so as not to wake my pregnant wife, I retreated to my home office to listen to the Lord.
Witnessing these failures in my friend and in myself had created a cry in my heart:
“Lord, I want to be someone you can trust…and someone I can trust.”
My heart was crying out to God for true righteousness, for an end to come of having to second-guess every impulse of my heart.
I was filled with an intense longing for righteousness, the genuine hunger and thirst to be “right on the inside”. How much longer would I have to contend with the traitor within — my own sin?
My desires for righteousness continued to grow and grow, with tears flowing quietly and slowly. Soon, I was having a back and forth conversation with God that I recorded in my journal.
He asked me, “What do you want?”
Somehow, I knew this was a Solomon type moment. Just as God gave Solomon a chance to ask Him for anything, now He was giving me the same opportunity. I knew in that holy moment I’d receive whatever I requested. Briefly, worried thoughts flashed through my eyes. What if I ask for the wrong thing? What if I blow it? But somehow, a response presented itself to me.
“I want your Likeness, Father. I want to look just like you, to be just like you. I want to be just like Jesus Your perfect son.”
The Lord responded: “This is a good prayer and one I am willing to answer.”
But I had more questions for Him: “Lord, what should I do to move in this direction.”
“Meditate on my love for you,” came the unexpected response.
As He said these words, immediately I saw myself sitting at a piano, singing about God’s love in our local house of prayer.
I knew my times of prayer would forever be different from that day forward.
He continued, “Once you know how much you are loved by me, everything else will flow from this.”
“Is there anything else I can do to attain it?”
He gently corrected me, “Do not attain to it, receive it as a gift.”
Transforming the Place of Prayer
This special night of encounter with God kept going. That same night, God gave me a ministry assignment that defined the next year and a half or my life. However, this phrase, “Meditate on my love for you” and its connection to righteousness and the likeness of the Father would fundamentally transform my personal life and my prayer life from that day forward.
Here are some of the changes that took place immediately in the aftermath of this word.
My prayer times moved from mostly praying for revival to mostly meditating on God’s love for me.
I know it can sound selfish to “meditate on God’s love for you.” However, I’m convinced there’s nothing more unselfish that we can do. Until we receive and understand the Father’s love for us, we will never be able to love others with that same love. As the Scripture says, “we love because He first loved us.” As I meditated on the love of God, I became more established in His love, and got better at releasing that love to others.
In this season, prayer shifted from focusing on petitions and requests to meditating on His nature and character.
Prayer was no longer mostly about problems for God to fix, injustice to be remedied, or even revival. It became a regular encounter with my Father, who also happened to be the Creator of the universe. Because He was so much greater, it made sense to praise Him, to listen, and to receive of His bounty.
Yet somehow, there seemed to be more answered prayer than ever before.
I discovered how Biblical it was to meditate on God’s love.
One of the greatest scandals of the New Covenant is that the divine love of God the Father for God the Son is now being shared with Human beings. This mystery is hidden in plain sight in the Scripture but we can’t actually see it unless Holy Spirit opens our eyes.
John 17:26 reveals that the eternal love the Father has for His only begotten Son is now given to us as His people.
John 15:9 reveals that Jesus loves us in the same way the Father loves Jesus.
In one of the greatest prayers of the Apostle Paul, He asks God for a full revelation of Christ’s love so that “you may be filled to all the fullness of God.”
I quickly learned that the Lord was really calling me to have prayer times where I learned to abide in the vine (John 15). By making this my focus in the place of prayer, I was allowing the love of God that was mine as a child to God to flow into my spirit and transform my thinking, correcting wrong thought patterns that I had picked up from the world.
The presence of God greatly increased in my prayer times, and it enabled me to persevere through intense trials.
When I think about that season, there are two things I remember: Constant fear and agony from financial trials and uncertainty about what I was doing in ministry, and powerful encounters with the love of God that made me forget about the pain. At times I felt bi-polar. In the prayer room, God’s presence was exploding with light and love. It was joy unspeakable and full of glory! In ministry, I was bearing fruit and seeing God’s favor in incredible new ways. In the midst of all that, the pressure was unbearable. Only revelation of the love of God kept me from quitting.
The love of God is the biggest thing in my life.
I wish I could say that I’m fully walking in the likeness of the Father — that I can trust myself completely to be righteous as I prayed on that night. That would be a lie. I still struggle with the traitor within.
However, I can say this: the love of God has become the biggest thing in my life. Spending long seasons of time receiving His love, often through singing songs to Him about His love for me and His nature has transformed me.
I may still be living in the desert of this age, but now there is a deep, pure, cool well of water where I live. I may not always be drinking, but I always know where to find my next drink. Even when I forget His love for a moment, I can always return, remember, and refresh my soul in His love that surpasses knowledge.