The Father's Love - Dec 2 Issue 32 By Minister Aije Barnes

1 Corinthians 13

The other day, I was listening to  Radio 4 and heard a sad statistic that many women do not like themselves. This may have come about as a result of the type of culture or household they were brought up in, the experiences they may have had in life where they may have always been made to feel like second class citizens, only good enough for certain things, no rights etc etc...

If a girl child grew up without appreciation and love where her mistakes are always thrown back at her not for correction sake but to taunt her she will grow up feeling very unloved. This is not what God created you for!

Women are also always giving and pouring out their love to their husbands, kids, other people's lives and most of the  time forget to love themselves. A woman can give her food to her husband or kids and stay happily hungry.

Whilst this is admirable, Jesus says, love your neighbour as yourself. He wants you to love yourself first and with the same love, love your neighbour.

Woman, let God replace your ashes with a crown of beauty, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. (Isaiah 61:3 NIV)

Whether you are a child of God or not, God loves you!

John 3:16 says, for God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

God's love is extended to everyone including you woman!

You can however only experience the fulness of God's love if you ask Him to come

into your life. You do this by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Saviour and

allow him to transform you onto a new creature.

When you become a new creature, old things are passed away and all

Things have become new. This means the old ways of thinking such

as not loving or valuing yourself passes away and you now you should

start seeing yourself as God sees you.

The bible says you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, peculiar people to show forth the Praises of the Lord Who has called you out if darkness into His Marvellous light. 1 Peter 2:9

The bible also says you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus created to do good works.

In order to be effective in doing these good works, you need to understand that you are loved by your heavenly Father and you should therefore start loving and valuing yourself because God loves you and wants you to love yourself.

1 John 4 7 - 8 says a lot about love and how we should love one another. Very importantly it also says God is love.

Come with me as I share with the Father's love expressed in 1 Corinthians 13. Let us replace the word "love" or in some versions, "charity",  with "God"'.

The first 3 verses talks about how empty a life without God is.

Now read the following with the replaced word from verses 4-8:

God is patient, God is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. He does not dishonor others, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, He keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. God never fails.  (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV).

This is the Father's love for you and nothing can separate you from His love. The bible says:    For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38, 39 NIV) - Wow!!!

Keep these words in your heart and and speak them into your life whenever the father of lies tries to deceive you with his lies.    Remember God has equipped you with everything you need to withstand the evil one. The most powerful weapon of all is the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God! Believe it and use it!

Be encourage by this that as a child of God, you are the bride of Christ and your bridegroom is coming soon for you. So if your first marriage is a bit of a struggle to get to,  through or over due to divorce or being widowed, don't despair the King of kings, Lord of lords and the Prince of Peace is coming for you - His bride! He will never disappoint you. His love never fails and  He wants you to start enjoying His love now.

So woman, go on and fully embrace the Father's love and live as He has called you to live because you are very valuable to Him. God loves you so love him back and yourself and others as yourself!