Knowing his heart

We love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
A. It is important for us to know the truth about how God feels about us, particularly when we see areas of darkness in our lives. Our hearts must be anchored in the reality of His love. We cannot love Him unless we first have the revelation that His love is toward us. It is in knowing His desire for us that we are equipped in times of weakness.
I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me. (Song of Solomon 7:10)
1. The devil wants us to lose sight of God’s love because he wants us to shrink back from God. Without confidence in God’s love for us, we will run away from Him instead of to Him in our weakness and brokenness.
2. When we sin, God wants us to stand before Him, ask for forgiveness, repent (turn from) our sin, and declare war on it. We declare war on sin by purposing in our heart not to give ourselves to sin in any way. We may fall in an area of sin many times, but we can still declare war on it by hating it as our enemy and determining within ourselves to love God.
3. When we turn away from sin to God, He wants us to be confident that we stand before Him as a first-class citizen in His family. We must take confidence in the fact that He has given us the gift of righteousness in which we can now walk. He wants us to have the confidence that He loves us in the same way that He loves Jesus.
4. The only way we can mature is by having the confidence that God loves us while we are growing. If we do not know He loves us in the process of maturity, we will not continue coming to Him when we stumble.
B. Weak love is not false love. Weak love is sincere, and God desires us to be confident in His delight over us while we are maturing.
1. God sees the cry of our spirit to love Him. When our heart is reaching, making determination to obey, it moves God. The longing to obey is the beginning of victory over sin.
2. Spiritual immaturity is not the same thing as rebellion, though outwardly they may appear the same. The difference is that when a sincere believer sins, they are grieved over it. When a person in rebellion sins, they are unconcerned as long as they get away with it.
C. Condemnation, also called shame or accusation, does not originate with God. Condemnation sometimes remains after we repent and tells us that who we are as a person is wrong, that everything about us is bad.
1. Shame makes us want to give up. It leaves us without hope and prompts us to run away from God instead of to Him.
2. Satan accuses us night and day, wanting us to believe that we are hopeless hypocrites that struggle to love God while the truth is that we are lovers of God who struggle with sin.
…the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night… (Revelation 12:10)
For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God–through Jesus Christ our Lord... (Rom. 7:22-25)
II. Jesus Leads us with a Cherishing Heart

...just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish... For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. (Ephesians 5:27, 29)
A. An accusatory leader points out errors and writes people off as hopeless failures. Jesus has a cherishing leadership style that sees the cry of our hearts, values it and calls it forth. He does point out areas of deficiency through the conviction of the Holy Spirit, but He does not define us primarily by our sin.
B. He washes us with the water of His word, washing our hearts from guilt and the desires to remain in sin. We are actually motivated to walk in the light when He reveals the way He feels about us. This is the way He is going to bring us to love holiness.
C. The way that God loves God is not even comprehensible. Yet, Jesus says that He loves us in the same way that the Father loves Him. Not only does Jesus love us, but the Father Himself loves us. Jesus calls us to abide, or rest in the reality of this love.

As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. (John 15:9)
…the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me… (John 16:27)