I HAVE LOVED YOU….

Without the awareness of the greatness of God’s love for us, living in His kingdom would be just another set of rules to obey. This love of God binds our hearts to Him in a powerful union of trust, submission and obedience which are the hallmarks of a true son.

“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.”

John 15:9 NLT

“But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.”

Jude 1:20-21 NLT

Can you see how important it is that we understand that all we experience as believers in Jesus must be filtered through this love of God? His love underpins everything that has happened and will happen to us because He is “passing by”, to reveal Himself to us, in each situation, according to our need.

To put our trust in and root our lives in God’s love means that NOTHING can get between His love and us. Paul assures us, based on everything God did for us through Jesus…

“I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:38-39 NLT

God’s love for us didn’t begin when we came to faith in Jesus. God loved us before He made the world.

“Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.”

Ephesians 1:4 NLT

God was watching and intimately supervising the formation of the unborn child and setting out the days of its life before it came into the world.

“You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

Psalms 139:15-16 NLT

He loved us even when we were living in sin in our unregenerate days.

“But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.”

Romans 5:8 NLT

The Old Covenant was an interim covenant given to Israel to teach them that God is holy and that sin separates sinners from a holy God and is punishable by consequences. To apply the consequences of sin, which Jesus atoned for by His death, to believers in Jesus in the New Covenant is to cancel what Jesus did on the cross.

So, believers cannot be rooted in God’s love and be subject to generational curses at the same time.

I found another contradiction in the context of deliverance in general. Isaiah prophesied that Messiah would set His people free…

“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the broken-hearted and to proclaim that captives will be released, and prisoners will be freed.”

Isaiah 61:1 NLT

Jesus confirmed that He was the Anointed One…

“The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.” He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. All eyes in the synagogue looked at him intently. Then he began to speak to them. “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

Luke 4:17-21 NLT

… and that it was His role to set captives free.

Free from what?

Free from sin and all its effects.

Jesus is passionate about setting His people free from everything that opposes, contradicts, or attempts to replace God’s grace and that has any control over them other than the Holy Spirit. God gives His grace freely to those who realise they are nothing and depend on Him for everything that enables them to live free… from sin, and from self – effort.

Jesus sets us free when we realise that real freedom us living in the absolute confidence of God’s love for us, revealed and confirmed in the death of Jesus.

“What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?”

Romans 8:31-32 NLT

“And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”

Colossians 2:6-7 NLT

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ² Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³ All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 1 John 3:1-3