Word Study: Loved By God.

Good morning. This last summer has been a learning kind of summer and I don’t mean academically. Oh! I did finish my course and I had to study for quizzes and tests and for my certification and the final, but that’s not really what I was taught this year.

 

 

This year in the midst of a move and a course and a pulled back and the physical therapy it entailed, HE taught me, I should say re-taught me, what my identity in Him is.

One of the ways I learn and teach myself to teach from the Bible is to pretend I’m in a group and have the people ask me difficult questions. All of last year I kept thinking of how I would encourage women struggling with their identity in a world where everything seems to change from day to day.

Based on what another pastor said, I took the passage from Genesis 32: 22-32 where Jacob wrestles with God and added what I would say to give women hope. In this passage Jacob, after a lifetime of cheating and deceiving, and before meeting his brother he had so badly wronged, wrestles with God. It says that Jacob sent his whole family and his possessions across the ford of Jabbok and when he is alone, a man wrestles with him until daybreak. The man wants Jacob to let him go but Jacob will not until he is blessed. The man asks him for his name, and then hearing it, changes it to Israel, meaning that from a ‘deceiver’ Jacob is now a ‘man who wrestled with God and man and has overcome’.

This change of name is actually a change in identity and as such, only God can make the old creation new. This is why many scholars believe this appearance to Jacob was a theophany ( pre-incarnate appearance of God).

I took this God given change of identity and applied it to the women of today, myself included. Just as in the passage God would ask for our names. And we would give it, a name given to us by others, or assumed by ourselves.

It may be Bitter or Angry or Broken or Hopeless or Sorrowful or Lustful or Scared or Lonely or Friendless or Tired or Dejected.

And then, gently and tenderly, God would tell us, “Your name is no longer…. but from now on you will be called LOVED, KNOWN, REDEEMED, FORGIVEN, CHOSEN, MINE”.

This scenario was something I went over and over in my mind. Choosing things I would say, changing things, answering questions I would receive.

At the start of 2018 I felt confident of my identity in Christ and that I would be able to help others re-discover it too. By April of 2018 I was floundering! I was restless, annoyed, irritated, hurt and struggling to stay afloat in various relationships. Finally God showed me in a series of images that what I had prepared in my mind for other women to be encouraged should be something I myself study. Again. So I did.

Part of my silence (on the blog) was for that reason. I did word studies on these chosen attributes and took them to heart. I took my time, wrote down verses I liked, meditated on them for a few weeks, and when I felt like I trusted God when He said I am LOVED, KNOWN etc, then I moved on to the next.

So in the midst of studying for quizzes I was studying for myself too. I was re-learning my identity in Christ and taking that truth deep into myself until I could not be shaken.

Don’t you just love God’s timing? And the way He works? I’m simply in awe of how TENDER and GENTLE HE is. He pursued and still pursued me. He showed me ways to come back to Him, my strong ROCK and my FOUNDATION. He put women in my life who constantly spoke truth over me. They reminded me of verses (some of which I did not want to hear in the midst of that hurt!) but they kept checking on me and asking after the state of my heart and what I believed about God that day.

There were so many days that I was mad at God Himself and without these lovely ladies constantly reminding me of His faithfulness and goodness on a daily basis, it would have taken me much longer to make up the quarrel with Him!

I am grateful that He is strong enough for me to throw a fit and still love me. I’m grateful that He is patient with me waiting for me to repent but also giving me a family to encourage me when I needed it. I’m grateful that He leaves the ninety nine for me because I belong to Him and He will not lose anyone given to Him by the Father.

As I type this my daughter is watching the word count go up, and my precious seven year old is impressed by how many words I can write! I have not the heart to tell her that some of my other posts are word heavy! And my little boy is sitting next to me on the other side making me make him numbers out of the cereal (dry) he is supposed to be eating!

I will leave you today with the knowledge that I AM LOVED BY GOD HIMSELF. And if He, the most splendid and majestic God loves me, HE LOVES YOU TOO. Take heart dear friend when you feel lonely and friendless and rejected.

He sees. 

He cares. 

He knows.

He loves you (and me) with an everlasting love. 

And He never goes away. 

I will leave you with some of my favorite verses when I studied being Loved by Him. I hope you are blessed.

Until next time,

Vanessa.

      

 

       

      

      

Creator of heaven and earth.

Recently we had the opportunity to travel through different states. My husband and I were enthralled by the majesties of creation around us. We were in Cincinnati and loved, absolutely loved, the verdant and healthy trees , that we saw as we went up and down the hills. We even drove into Kentucky just to look at the views.

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We did live in Wisconsin and Michigan for a few years,  and  as much as I don’t like the cold or the snow, there’s a pristine and rugged beauty there that is soothing to so many people.

In New Mexico, the dessert landscape with the mountains as a backdrop, is so similar to the regions where Jesus grew up and walked and taught , that we had no difficulty imagining David composing his psalms there.

(As you can probably tell, I love the mountains and green foliage and water!)

During this time, I was reminded again and again of ” Psalm 19:1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”  We serve a Creator God, a God who takes pleasure in the work of His hands, who when He was finished with each successive day of creation, said “it is good”, reserving, “it is very good” for when He created human beings. Today I want to revel in the beauty around me and remember, that Heaven will be so much better.

 

A few verses to remind us of Him and His love for us. How majestic and glorious He is. And how deserving of honour and glory.

1 Peter 4:19

So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good

Isaiah 40:28

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom.

 

Isaiah 42:5

This is what God the Lord says – the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out, who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it:

Genesis 14:19

and he blessed Abram, saying, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth.

Marvel in His glory, and remember He loves you. If you were the only person who needed saving, He would still die for you.