Description: We have heard, “Jesus, loves me.” But WHY are we loved? Are we lovable? YES! We are lovable because God is LOVE, and LOVE made us. And LOVE can’t make anyone that isn’t lovable. Our lovable-ness to God isn’t about behavior. Our lovableness has everything to do with who God is and who He made us to be. God loved us before we were born. God loved us so much that He sent His Son to die for us and take away our sins. If we were loved before we did anything good or bad, then there is nothing we can do to lose that love! We didn’t do anything to earn it in the first place!  We aren’t loved because we DO. We are loved because we ARE! We aren’t loved because we love God. We were already loved by God. We love because He first loved us! 

Session 4: “I Am Lovable” transcript/ notes

Welcome to Session 4 of “As Jesus Is, So Am I.” This session is entitled, “I am Lovable.” Jesus is lovable, and so am I. This is one of the most profound revelations that we can have. We say, “Jesus loves me this I know.” This has been hammered into us since childhood. So we know it, but do we believe it? To believe it, you must know you are lovable. So I want to talk about the love of God for us, but also take it a step further: you are loved because you are lovable.

Last week Sarah shared about knowing God and receiving His love. If you receive His love, you are receiving Him because God is love, right? And if you’ve seen Jesus, you’ve seen the Father, so we look to Jesus to see the love of God manifested.

So the more we learn about Jesus, the beauty if His Person and His work of love, the more we’ll know Him; and the more we’ll believe in Him and put our trust and confidence in Him. And then, the more we will be able to receive His love and grace and share it with others.

How can you give what you have not received? How can you receive what you do not believe? How can you believe what you do not know? How can you know until someone tells you. That’s why I do what I do. And I know you do the same.

2 Corinthians 5:13-14, NIV – If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For Christ’s love compels us…

I’m compelled by the love of Jesus to share this Good News, but I can’t open anyone’s eyes to this revelation that you are loved because you are lovable. Only the Spirit of God can do that.

So I pray for the Spirit of Wisdom and revelation into the knowledge of Jesus to move in our spirits today and renew our hearts and minds to this truth. I pray like Paul that you might –

Ephesians 3:18-19, NIV –  grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

I press on

Last week, I played a song for y’all that really touched my heart in the early days of my grace awakening. It’s called “He Is Lovely” by Bob Fitts. I would weep to this song because I would hear the Father say to me as the lyrics say,

I can see that you love Jesus first; it’s plain to me / And that you sit close and hear His heartbeat

For in your eyes, I see shining love that speaks so clear / And I can hear them saying so sweetly

You are lovely; You are holy / You gave supremely that all men might see

You are gentle; tenderhearted / My Risen Savior; You are God

When the grace of God was revealed to me, I was in an environment in ministry where it was encouraged to show others how much you loved God. But when Grace came, I no longer cared what anyone else thought. I didn’t care if they knew I loved Jesus. God knew I loved Jesus because He is the One who unveiled Jesus to me. I couldn’t boast in my love! I loved Him because He loved me first!

As I was singing that song this week, it reminded me of something Paul said:

Philippians 3:12 – I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.

Jesus laid hold of me and I have never been the same! Now I want to lay hold of everything for which He laid hold of me.

Paul wrote that during his imprisonment in Rome – near the end of his life and his ministry, not the beginning. This was many years after that day on the road to Damascus. That tells me that there is no end to the depth of our knowledge of Jesus and the treasure hunt for the revelation and the experience of His love.

He loved me first

Did you know He loves to love us? I talked about that last year in the message about the Peace Offering. We feast on His love, and He also feasts on His own love for us. He loves to love us. But how can you feast on the love of God if you don’t feel you are worthy of His love? Do you believe you are worth loving? Do you believe you are lovable? Maybe this will help you believe:

Before the beginning of time, you were already loved.

Ephesians 1:4, NLT – Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes

How did He do that? Through the cross – His great demonstration of love.

Revelation 13:8 – the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

What does that mean? Didn’t Jesus die on the cross 2000 years ago? He did, but God lives outside of time. The provision for all our failings was already in God’s plan before any of us even came to be. In time, which came first, Jesus’s death on the cross or “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son?” He loved and gave first! Then Jesus died. Then you believed.

If you were loved before you did anything good or bad, if you were loved before you were even saved by faith in Jesus, then there is nothing you can do to lose that love! You didn’t do anything to earn it in the first place!

• You aren’t loved because you do.
• You are loved because you are!
• You aren’t loved because you love God.
• You were already loved by God.
• We love because He first loved us!

Romans 5:6-8 – when we were still without strength, [no power to save ourselves.] in due time Christ died for the ungodly. [Ungodly means wicked; those who condemn God.] 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Again – the cross is God’s greatest demonstration of His love for us. He loved us before He sent Jesus. And He loved Jesus because Jesus laid down His life for us. Jesus said –

John 10:17 – “My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life…”

God gave the Son He loves. You know how much you love your children? Imagine how much God loves His Son.  You’ll never know how much God loves you until you know how much He loves His Son because He gave His Son for you.

The love of God for us

And we are God’s children so whatever love we feel for our children, we can multiply that times a million and a million times over to reach God’s love for us. It’s hard to imagine. I think God gave us children so we could understand how much He loves us.

Isaiah 49:15-16, NLT – “Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, [God says – ] I would not forget you! 16 See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands….”

When we look at our children, nothing on earth compares to the love that we have for them. We can see straight past their faults. I remember when my son was about 9 or 10 years old, and he was way too big to sit in my lap. But I asked him to come sit in my lap, and I said to him, do you know how much I love you?” He said, “I think so.” To illustrate my love for him, I asked him, “What is the worst thing you can think of that you could do?” He said, “Burn the house down.” I said, “Even if you burned the house down, I would still love you. There is nothing you could do that would cause me not to love you.” Why? Because I had loved him before he was even born! When he was in my womb I loved him! I had always loved him, and I always will – because he’s my son! He’s mine!

Sin did not affect God’s love for us any more than our child’s first act of defiance affected our love for him. We were not surprised. We knew it was coming. God knew we would sin. He was not surprised by it. That’s why His plan for our redemption was already in place in eternity.

Hebrews 4:4 – the works were finished from the foundation of the world

Before we were born, God loved us

I found this amazing print of a giraffe made for a baby nursery. It says, “I loved you for a long time, and then you were born.” My heart skipped a beat when I first saw that. That’s the way it is with God. He loved us while we were still in the womb. But even before we were a figment of our parents’ imagination, God already loved us. He already knew us. I’m going to read a list of scriptures to renew our minds to this truth, and where God is mentioned I’m going to say the word “LOVE”  because God is love.

Isaiah 49:1, NIV – Before I was born the Lord [Love] called me; from my mother’s womb he [Love] has spoken my name.

Jeremiah 1:5, NLT — [Love says] “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart.”

Ephesians 1:11, TPT – Before we were even born, he [Love] gave us our destiny; that we would fulfill the plan of God [Love] who always accomplishes every purpose and plan in his heart.

Galatians 1:15-16 – But when it pleased God [Love], who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, 15 to reveal His Son in me,…

2 Timothy 1:9 – [Love] has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

1 Peter 1:19-20, NIV – [You were redeemed] with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He [Jesus] was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.

If Jesus was chosen before the creation of the world to shed His precious blood for us, how could His love for us be dependent on our love for Him?

Known and Believed

1 John 4:10, 16 – In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation [as a sacrifice] for our sins…. 16 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, [In Christ- our identity] and God in him. [Christ in us – His life in us. We abide in Him, and from His abiding presence within us, He lives through us and bears the fruit of love.]

John wrote that. The one known for calling himself the disciple whom Jesus loved, the one known for practicing the love of Jesus for him wrote about abiding in Love and Love abiding in us. And he was the only gospel writer to record these words of Jesus the last night they were all together:

John 15:7-8 – “If you abide in Me, [If you abide in Love] and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. [John understood that consciousness of abiding in Love and Love abiding in us is directly related to the confidence to ask for anything and receive from God – not only that, but also to bear fruit] My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit…”

Back to 1 John 4:16 – “we have known and believed the love that God has for us.” It’s not enough just to know, you have to believe that God loves you in order to receive His love and give His love. The only way to truly believe that God loves you is to have the revelation of WHY He loves you and that His love is not based on your own righteousness.

Why am I loved?

I shared with you last week about a journal one of my children wrote when he was 10 years old. On the first page, entitled, “Why do I Matter?” he wrote: “Although I know I am loved, I don’t know why yet. I know that the Lord will either tell me or show me. It may be today. It may be in ten years. I don’t know. What I do know is that I matter.”

One day after reading that precious journal entry for probably the 20th time, I stopped to think about it. I asked myself the question, “Why am I loved by God?” I decided to Google it because that’s always interesting, right? And when I Google stuff like this, I always will add a word like Bible or Christian so that it tells me the Christian point of view. The first few lines of the search linked to lists of scriptures that tell me that God loves me and that He sent Jesus because He loves me, such as John 3:16 and –

John 15:13 – Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

All of the verses that were given told me that I AM loved, but none of them told me why. WHY am I loved? Am I loved because I do good things? Have a great personality? So I kept searching on the internet to see if anyone out there in the Christian world had ever answered this question – WHY am I loved by God? Then I came to a website that seemed like it might offer an answer based on the blurb on Google. The page started by saying that this question is among the most profound questions ever asked. It went on to say, however, that “One thing is for certain: God does not love us because we are lovable.” In other words, you are not lovable.

I stopped and couldn’t read any further. I knew that what I was reading was the total opposite of what I know to be true. As I was “X-ing” out the page, the answer to my question came like a lightening bolt: that word “lovable” jumped off the page. The Holy Spirit spoke to me so clearly: “You are loved because you are LOVABLE! “

But then another question came: WHY am I lovable? It’s so simple that it’s hard to see. Am I loved only when I am behaving myself? Does that mean that sometimes I am simply not loved? We are lovable because God is LOVE, and LOVE made us. And LOVE can’t make anyone that isn’t lovable. That would be impossible. If you gave birth, it wouldn’t be a puppy. It would be a human. Love begets that which is lovable.

But am I lovable when I sin? Our lovable-ness to God doesn’t have anything to do with our behavior. Our lovableness has everything to do with who God is and who He made us to be.

We are the apple of His eye, His masterpiece

The Bible says we are the “apple of His eye.” Did you ever wonder what that meant? The word “apple” isn’t apple like the fruit in Hebrew. It’s an expression. The Hebrew word there actually means “pupil” as in the pupil of the eye, the center of the eye and the most sensitive part of the eye that you protect. It’s the Hebrew word “ishon” which is related to “ish” which means “man.”  So the expression can be translated with the idiom, “the little man of the eye.” Have you ever looked at someone in the eye and saw your own reflection? That’s the “little man in the eye.” You are the “little man in God’s eye.” It means you are the most precious thing to Him.

Zechariah 2:8 – whoever touches you [hurts you] touches the apple of his eye…

When you look into the eyes of Jesus, what do you see? You should see what He sees. You are the apple of His eye! “As Jesus is so am I.” You are lovable. God has an ability to do what no one else can: He can separate the soul from the spirit; He can separate feelings from the truth. He can see beyond the flesh to the core. He can see what He made, and He LOVES what He sees. LOVE made you, LOVE knows you, and LOVE LOVES you.

When God looks at me, He sees through my weaknesses and failures. And only HE has the ability to show me what is so glorious about what He made. There is no one like me and never has been. I am His Masterpiece.

Ephesians 2:10, NLT – For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.

Before we were born He loved us and planned a life of destiny and purpose for each of us. That word “masterpiece” is the Greek word “poiēma” – from which we get our word “poem.” Each one of us is a unique and beautiful poem written by Love.

Psalm 139:13-14, 16-18, NIV says – For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; [Can you say that? Can you say, “I praise You, Lord, because I am wonderfully made!”]… 16 all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand…

How He loves – He abundantly pardons

His thoughts towards us are precious. “Yāqar” – to esteem, be prized, be highly valued, be costly; rare like a one-of-a-kind, brilliant diamond. Those are His thoughts towards us. His thoughts and His ways are so much higher than ours.

Isaiah 55:7-9 – Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the Lord, And He will have mercy on him; [raham – tender mercies of a loving Father who lavishly forgives] And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon. 8 “For [because – so He is contrasting “abundantly pardons” with man’s thoughts and ways] My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. [NLT – “My ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.”  “You can’t even imagine how freely I pardon! I ABUNDANTLY pardon!” The key word is “ABUNDANTLY.” Sometimes man pardons, but God pardons ABUNDANTLY – beyond anything we would consider reasonable or fair. The phrase “ABUNDANTLY pardon” is actually two verbs in a row. It literally means “I will exponentially multiply My pardoning.” When God multiplies, it’s exceeding. It’s the same word used when He told Abraham, “I will multiply you exceedingly.” (Genesis 17:2) His ways are different! How different are His ways and thoughts? How much will He ABUNDANTLY pardon? It’s immeasurable -] 9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”

Why does God freely pardon? Pardon is a judicial term. Mercy and love are not judicial terms. Mercy and love sent Jesus, but the cross is justice served. There was no mercy for Jesus at the cross.

Romans 3:26 – … to demonstrate at the present time [God demonstrates] His righteousness, [His justice] that He might be just and the Justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

God freely pardons because our pardon was paid for with the precious blood of His beloved Son. It was free to us, but it cost Jesus His life.  Jesus became our Substitute at the cross, and when He did, all of our sin – everything that was due to us – judgment, terror, punishment, condemnation – fell on Him and in Him. He became sin with our sin that we might become righteous with His righteousness. All of the divine claims of God’s holiness and righteousness were fully met in Jesus on our behalf. The cross is God’s final answer to sin. It is finished!

My Beloved Son

God loved us so much He sent His Son, the very Son who was the first of many sons and daughters of whom God speaks from heaven:

Matthew 3:17 – “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” [“Son” is Jesus’s identity. “Beloved” is God’s acceptance of Him. “Well pleased” is God approval of Him.]

Right after that, the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert where the devil tempted Him. He said to Jesus,

Matthew 4:3 – “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

Notice the devil didn’t use the words “beloved Son.” He left out the word “beloved.” That’s the way the devil works. He wants us to question whether we are loved and accepted by God. He tried that with Jesus, but it didn’t work. Before the devil can lead us astray and cause us to sin, the first thing he will try is to make us feel unloved and unaccepted. And then when we go astray, condemnation will come, and we will believe that God no longer approves of us. We are no longer well-pleasing to Him. In other words, we no longer bring Him pleasure, and we are no longer lovable.

The definition of lovable: possessing qualities which invite affection, worthy and deserving of love; the power of pleasing. “Lovable” is the “power of pleasing.” If the enemy can get us to believe that God takes no pleasure in us, then he has convinced us that we are not lovable. God may not be pleased with our behavior, but nothing will cause Him not to take pleasure in the person He created out His heart of love.

In Matthew 3:17, God says “My Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Do you realize that this was before Jesus began His earthly ministry? Before any recorded miracles? And long before He went to the cross?

As Jesus is so are we. God loved and accepted us and took pleasure in us before we ever did anything worthy of His love. God says of me –

Matthew 3:17, – “This is My beloved daughter, Tricia, in whom I am well pleased.” [He takes pleasure in me. Why? Because I am lovable! I’m the apple of His eye! The most precious thing to Him. That never changes. And that’s why it grieves Him when I am not walking in the fullness of His love.]

How God pardons – rejoicing

Back to how God pardons. It’s the manner in which He pardons that is different. His ways are not man’s ways. God abundantly pardons. This is gloriously illustrated in the parables that Jesus shared in Luke 15. Notice how the chapter begins:

Luke 15:1-6 – Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him. [Why did they draw near to Him? Because He was DIFFERENT. His ways and His thoughts were DIFFERENT. They weren’t fearful of Him. They were drawn to Him because of His kindness and mercy.] 2 And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.” [I can imagine their pious, arrogant, self-righteous tone. That’s man’s ways. Man’s ways and man’s thoughts have no mercy. The flesh of man is unforgiving and judgmental.] 3 So He spoke this parable to them, [to the sinners to show them HIS ways and HIS thoughts] saying: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? [Our Good Shepherd left the comforts of heaven for these sinners who drew near to Him. He came to this world to find them and die for them! The Good Shepherd DOES NOT GIVE UP UNTIL HE FINDS THAT LOST SHEEP! That’s the WAY He loves the lost!] 5 And when he [the Good Shepherd] has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. [Not one word of rebuke for running away. No anger towards the lost sheep who caused so much trouble. The Good Shepherd is just so happy He’s found His beloved lamb. That’s the WAY He loves and the WAY He thinks. His thoughts are not man’s thoughts. Jesus will not remember our sins!] 6 And when he comes home, [to heaven] he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’” [There is REJOICING in heaven when Jesus brings the lost sheep home. He not only ABUNDANTLY pardons, but He pardons with REJOICING! That’s the WAY He loves us! He pardons with a PARTY!]

Psalm 100:3 – It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

You realize in order to bring that lost sheep home, the Good Shepherd will have to lay down His own life for the sheep

Isaiah 53:6 – All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

But He did it for the joy! For the REJOICING!

Hebrews 12:2 – for the joy that was set before Him [He] endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. [He took the burden of our sin on His own shoulders so that He could carry us home, REJOICING!]

How God pardons – lavishly

In that same chapter of Luke is the beautiful story of the merciful, gracious, loving father and his prodigal son. You know that story well, so I won’t repeat it all. I covered it thoroughly in Session 6 of Beholding Jesus in His Amazing Grace, “Jesus, Our Relentless Savior.” But I do want to point out a couple of things about the way the Father loves us.

Luke 15:18-20 – [After the son had squandered everything his father had given him in riotous living, and thought to himself, “There is bread enough and to spare in my father’s house,” the son says to himself] “‘I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 And he arose and came to his father. But when he  was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, [raham is the Hebrew parallel] and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.”

While his son was a great way off, the father saw him. He was obviously waiting and watching every day, scanning the horizon.

• While his son was wasting his life in rebellion, did the father still love him? Yes, he was waiting and watching for him.
• While his son was hungry because of his own foolishness, did the father still love him? Yes, he was waiting and watching for him.

And then when he saw the tiny figure of his son on the horizon, he couldn’t hold himself back. He held on to hope! You know God’s heart is full of hope for us. He never gives up on us. This is the way God loves us. His ways are not the ways of man.

Then the father finally saw his son and ran! That was considered very undignified and shameful for an older man because he would have to pull up his robe to run. It’s a picture of Jesus setting aside His glory becoming a bondservant to come to us from heaven. This is the way God loves us. His ways are not the ways of man.

The Father would outrun those who would condemn his beloved son – because he knew that the law said the son should be stoned.

• His grace was greater than his son’s sins and
• His mercy would outrun those who would accuse his son.
• His love would cover over a multitude of sins.

This is the way God loves us. His ways are not the ways of man.

Imagine being that son seeing his father running towards him. I wonder if the son stopped and considered turning around and running away from his father. I wonder how long it took him to realize that his father wasn’t running towards him to punish him or yell at him or beat him. It was all the opposite of what he expected because this is the way God loves us. His ways are not the ways of man.

When the father reached his son, he cut off his son’s  prepared speech about being a hired servant. He would have none of that! “Bring out the best robe and put it on him…” Bring out the robe of righteousness.

The father didn’t seem to care that it wasn’t his son’s heart, nor his son’s conscience, nor his son’s love of family, but his stomach that brought him home. The father was just overjoyed to have him back.  What a scandalous thought: God accepts so low a motive as this in order to shower us with His grace!

And then he embraced his son. He “epipiptō”d” him! Do you remember “epipiptō” when the Holy Spirit fell on the people in Cornelius’s house in Acts 10 when Peter preached about the forgiveness of sins?

Acts 10:43-44 – “whoever believes in Him [Jesus] will receive remission of sins.” 44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon [epipiptō’d] all those who heard the word.

The Holy Spirit gave the people a big loving, tender hug when they heard that their sins were forgiven through the blood of Jesus Christ. Just like the embrace of the Holy Spirit, the father fell on his son’s neck and forgave the son of all his sins. There was not a word about his rebellion.

Luke 15:20, composite of several versions – “And the son got up and returned to his own father. But when he was still a great way off, his father looked off in the distance and saw his son returning. Great compassion swelled up in his heart. He was moved with pity and tenderness for his son, and he  raced out to meet him. He fell on his neck, enfolded him in an embrace, swept him up in his arms, hugged him dearly, and kissed him fervently, over and over with tender love..”

The Son had a right to expect nothing, but was given everything! Hesed! His lovingkindness. God says,

Jeremiah 31:3, NASB – I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness. [Hesed – We who have a right to expect nothing from God are given everything. But why?!]

Instead of a stoning, there was a party. There was music and dancing in the father’s house!

Luke 15:23-24 – “And [the father said – ] bring the fatted calf here and kill it, [A picture of Jesus!] and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” [The father called him a son! A huios! A full inheritor – he was justified – just as if he had never sinned and never left! He picked right up where he left off! Don’t worry about wasted years. He redeems the time and restores the years!] And they began to be merry.

This is the way God loves us. His ways are not the ways of man. Oh! That we might have a revelation of that kind of love!

We can’t judge our lovable-ness on the way we feel – we may feel that all we deserve is the bread crumbs of a servant. But our lovable-ness is not based on what we do. It’s based on what Jesus has done and who God is. He is love, and He can’t help but love us and take pleasure in us!

Child of God, you are lovable!

Copyright info: All scriptures in the New King James Version unless otherwise noted.

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