If I were to support someone on a healing journey, I would always start by checking how they experience the Father’s heart.
“And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” 1 john 4:16
You might be thinking ‘of course I know that God loves me’. But to know that God loves you, and to experience the Father’s heart intimately are not the same.
One is cognitive, the other experiential.
Joyce Meyer says that she was a Christian for many years before she realised that God loved her.
I decided to study God’s love in the Word, pray for God to change my heart, and confess what His Word says about His love for me. After about a year of doing this, I finally got a revelation about God’s love for me.
Joyce Meyer.
I relate to this as well. I was struggling in my walk because I only thought I was rooted in the love of Christ, but it hadn’t sunk into my heart.
If you think of the way our brains are hardwired. When you think something often enough, it becomes a strong hold in your brain.
Image: Rebekah Ballagh Journey to Wellness
So, if you have constantly over many years thought ‘God doesn’t love me….if God loved me then this terrible thing would not be happening… or ‘if God is a God of love, why does he allow such pain?’
Then, my suggestion is that you are yet to experience the Father’s heart towards you.
KNOW THE FATHER’S HEART
I know plenty of Christians, who claim to believe that God loves them, but the moment they’re faced with adversities, they walk away.
Receiving the love of God and receiving salvation are 2 different things. Once you have a revelation of God’s love, you will never walk away from Him. In fact, you’ll run to Him.
You develop intimacy with Him. He occupies your thoughts as he changes from being God the creator to God the Father.
I love that the apostle John calls himself ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’. We know that Jesus loved all of his disciples but John’s revelation was the greatest.
The Greek word for ‘loved’ here actually means ‘a continual love’. It knows no end.
THE NAME DAVID
The name David means ‘beloved’. You have to experience the love of God if you’re going to knock down any giants.
Sickness is a giant.
If you think of a little boy facing the massive Goliath, everything naturally speaking sees the unfairness of the fight.
The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.
1 Sam 17:37
The giant Goliath didn’t stand a chance when up against the greatness and goodness of our God. Our challenge is to be like David who knew how to experience the love of God.
GOD’S LOVE IS YOUR EMPOWERMENT
Knowing and believing the love and goodness of God is your empowerment. David knew that in and of himself, he couldn’t defeat Goliath but the supernatural ability came from God.
in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Rom 8:37
For those with chronic conditions, knowing the goodness of God empowers us to stay the course.
To keep on believing, to keep trusting and to not confuse reality with The Truth. Even if you never ‘get well’, you still desire and need to spend time with your Saviour because He is your everything.
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, Eph. 3:14.
When you experience God’s love, He becomes your anchor through hard times.
Think Joseph in the dungeon, the 3 slaves thrown into the fire or the woman with the issue of blood. They experienced the Father’s heart.
My personal opinion is that anyone who walks away from their faith never received the love of God to begin with. They think God is responsible for their troubles.
I think of Adam and Eve who had everything but they didn’t believe that God loved them. It didn’t take much for them to put the enemy’s lies above the Truth.
HIS LOVE CAUSES YOU TO FEEL ALIVE
When you know God loves you as though you’re the only one who ever existed, you have what I can only call an ‘aliveness’ on the inside.
You feel motivated, edified and ignited. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy” Rom 15:13
Everything on the outside looks as though ‘life is over’, but there is something on the inside of you that feels so awake. Think of Sleeping Beauty who, after receiving a kiss from a handsome prince, awakes after a 100 year sleep.
The love of God is a bit like this; when you receive it, you feel like your past was just the ‘sleeping you’. Black and white, has now turned into colour.
Of course, this has little to do with the natural realm around you.
“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,” 1 Peter 1:8
No matter how painful your illness and despite how long you journey with it, you can find a joy when you encounter the Father’s heart.
YOUR FAITH IS VOID UNLESS YOU EXPERIENCE THE FATHER’S HEART
The Bible tells us that ‘faith works through love’, Galatians 5:6. This isn’t to do with how much we love others but about whether or not we know and believe that God loves us.
It’s the receiving of the Father’s heart that activates your faith. In other words, we hinder God when we don’t believe in his love.
In my experience, the only way to receive the love of God, is to meditate on the Word of God; the verses that pertain to the Father’s heart.
Once it’s in your heart, it stays there and changes you forever. You transition from being a disciple to being the disciple whom Jesus loved.
What would your healing journey look like if you experience the Father’s heart and allow it to penetrate into your heart?
No longer blaming him or thinking he doesn’t love you.
I don’t mean to sound insensitive, I recognise some illnesses are draining and heartbreaking. The pain is very real but there is a medicine worth far more than chemo or penicillin.
God’s love is your most valuable resource.
I pray this helps you on your healing journey today.
God Bless you
Lorna x
If you found this helpful, try these posts