I believe a true, experiential understanding of God’s love will drastically change anyone’s life.
Ephesians 3: 14 So I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, 15 the perfect Father of every father and child in heaven and on the earth. 16 And I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosive power. 17 Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life. 18–19 Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences—the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is his love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding—this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!
Ephesians 3: 14 On this account I bow my knees to the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that He would grant to you according to the wealth of His glory, with power to be strengthened through the Spirit in the inward man, that the Christ might finally settle down and feel completely at home in your hearts through your faith; in love having been firmly rooted and grounded in order that you may be able to grasp with all the saints what is the breadth and width and height and depth, and to know experientially the love of the Christ which surpasses experiential knowledge in order that you may be filled up to the measure of all the fulness of God-Wuest translation.
Ephesians 3: 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Knowing God’s love experientially surpasses mere head knowledge, and it always results in us being filled with all the fullness of God. I could say it this way: If you aren’t experiencing all the fullness of God, then you aren’t experiencing God’s love.
Many people would argue with that. They would say that they know God loves them but that they are just under their circumstances at the moment. My answer would be, “What are you doing under there!” The Bible says we are to be above only and not beneath (Deut. 28:13).
When we are enjoying God’s love, everything else fades in comparison. No problem can compare to the unsearchable riches of God’s love.
Every Christian has the head knowledge of God’s love for them, but because of wrong thinking, it seldom translates into experience. There are things (primarily religious teachings) that dilute and weaken that revelation of God’s love.
The sovereignty of God.
Wrong thinking about this is one of the biggest problems people have in experiencing God’s love. If you believe God is the One who is causing all the problems in the world, it will affect your relationship with Him.
Let me illustrate it this way: What if you thought I was the one who killed thousands in the September 11 terrorist attacks, caused the tsunamis that devastated Asia, and destroyed New Orleans with a hurricane.
On the other hand, what if you thought I was so heartless that I would cause babies to be born with birth defects and people to suffer terrible things like murder and rape so I could teach them a lesson. If every evil thing in life were my fault, how would you feel about me?
There isn’t a civilized nation on the earth that wouldn’t have me killed, if they could prove I was behind all these things. Yet this is what the Lord is being blamed for every day. It’s even written in our contracts―major natural disasters and tragedies are called “acts of God.”
This isn’t a true representation of God. God is not the source of our problems. Understanding the sovereignty of God correctly is so important. Anyone who doesn’t get this right will never truly appreciate God’s love. It’s impossible to feel good about God if you believe the accusers that depict Him as evil.
God’s unconditional love.
That is a radical concept. Nearly all of religion links God’s love and acceptance of people to their worthiness. In other words, God’s love is proportional to their performance.
Some Christian religious groups, after presenting salvation as a free gift of God’s grace, turn right around and teach new believers that their continuing relationship with the Lord now depends on their performance. If they don’t live holy, go to church, read their Bibles, and pay tithes, etc., then the Lord won’t bless them or answer their prayers.
That kind of thinking will block a person from receiving the love of God. When their performance falls short, and it always does, their own hearts will condemn them. They just can’t believe God could love them. The truth is that God’s love for us has nothing to do with our performance. He loves us because He is love (1 John 4:8), not because we are lovely.
Understanding that God’s love is unconditional will revolutionize your life. It certainly has mine.
Another major roadblock to experiencing God’s love is this: How can a holy God love unholy people? To answer that, I explained how God is a Spirit, and if we are going to truly connect with Him in worship, we have to do it through our new born-again spirits (John 4:24). When I found out who I was in the spirit, it forever changed me. Understanding that is what allowed me to finally accept God’s love.
I am firmly convinced that a lack of seeing ourselves “in Christ” is the root of all unbelief and failure to experience God’s pure love. This is my life message. It’s at the core of all the understanding the Lord has given me, and I believe it has to become a true revelation to every person if they want to experience God’s love in its fullness.
Old covenant teaching.
This is another major area of wrong thinking. Much of what people believe about God’s rejection of us comes from Scripture. They use Old Testament scriptures as the basis for what they believe, not understanding that Jesus forever changed God’s dealings with mankind.
They don’t understand the difference between the way God dealt with people under the Old Covenant of the Law and the way He now deals with us through Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:19 says,
“Namely, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.”
Under this New Covenant, God is not imputing our sins unto us. That is the exact opposite of what happened under the Old Covenant. This is explained in detail in the New Covenant, and yet the body of Christ as a whole has missed this truth. The vast majority of Christians are still under sin consciousness, the very thing that Old Testament saints longed to be free from.
They saw our covenant by faith and prophesied about the superiority of the New Covenant that God would make with mankind (1 Pet. 1:10-12). Yet, modern-day Christians aren’t taking advantage of all the benefits of God’s love available in that New Covenant. God’s people truly are destroyed for lack of knowledge (Hos. 4:6).
Once you understand how much God loves you, it will compel you to allow God’s love to flow through you. However, there are many misunderstandings about what that means and how to do it.