Just a few hours before He went to the cross, Jesus prayed for us. And while His full prayer is recorded in John 17:1-26, one verse shows us God’s immense and complete love for us: “I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me” (verse 23). It’s staggering to the human mind yet thrilling that God loves each one of us as much as He does Jesus! It’s far easier to read that God loves us, but to really believe it in our hearts, receive it and walk in it takes us to another level altogether. If we really let ourselves believe in God’s Love for us, we will never again wonder if it is God’s will to heal…we will believe for healing and even more…we will RECEIVE it.
First John 4:9-13 says, “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit” (New King James Version).
When we believe God’s Love for us personally, it makes receiving whatever it is we’re believing for so much easier, because faith works by love (Galatians 5:6). What’s more, the Word tells us that “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment” (1 John 4:18, NKJV). If you’re standing in faith, declaring the Word over your health, and believing to receive your healing, if you saturate yourself with the Word of God about His love for you, if His love becomes your focus, then it makes receiving your healing and having victory over the fear tormenting you that much easier.
First John 4:16 is a powerful verse to personalize as a confession to help us believe God’s Love for us. We can say it this way: “I know how much God loves me, and I have put my trust in His love. God is Love, and because all who live in love live in God, God lives in me.”
It’s one thing to know the love of God, but another thing to believe the love. And it’s critical that we do both. In the last verse of Jesus’ prayer to His Heavenly Father, Jesus went on to say, “I have revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so. Then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them” (verse 26).
If you are born again, the same love of God that He loves Jesus with is inside of you! Romans 5:5 says, “And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”
God’s Love Never Fails
We can trust God because He loves us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). He loves us with covenant-making and covenant-keeping love.
Every night, Kenneth Copeland confesses God’s Love before he goes to sleep. Confessing God’s Word from Matthew 22:37-40, he says, “I love The LORD my God with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my strength. And I love my neighbor as myself, fulfilling all the law and the prophets.” Kenneth does this to keep himself in remembrance of God’s Love for him and God’s Love in him for others because he knows that God’s Love never fails. That’s what 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 shows us.
- Love endures long and is patient and kind.
- Love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily.
- Love is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride).
- Love is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly.
- Love (God’s Love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking.
- Love is not touchy or fretful or resentful.
- Love takes no account of the evil done to it; it pays no attention to a suffered wrong.
- Love does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness but rejoices when right and truth prevail.
- Love bears up under anything and everything that comes.
- Love is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and it endures everything without weakening.
- Love never fails; it never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end.
Of course, love never fails because God is Love. What’s more, if God is Love and we have received Him, then we have received love (1 John 4:16). We have received the love. We have believed the love. He lives on the inside of us, so too we are love, and therefore, we never fail either!
Part of renewing our hearts and minds is to become Love-that-never-fails-in-me-minded! And one way to begin doing that is to personalize 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 as our own confession. What if we replaced the word “love” with the personal pronoun “I”?
I endure long, and I am patient and kind.
I am never envious, nor do I boil over with jealousy.
I am not boastful or vainglorious, and I do not display myself haughtily.
I am not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride).
I am not rude (unmannerly), and I do not act unbecomingly.
I do not insist on my own rights or my own way, for I am not self-seeking.
I am not touchy or fretful or resentful.
I take no account of the evil done to me; I pay no attention to a suffered wrong.
I do not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but I rejoice when right and truth prevail.
I bear up under anything and everything that comes.
I am ever ready to believe the best of every person, my hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and I endure everything without weakening.
I never fail. I never fade out or become obsolete or come to an end.
Confessing God’s Love is a powerful way to renew our hearts and minds to the power of God’s Love to transform us, to strengthen us and to heal us. It’s a powerful way to increase our faith to believe and receive the love God has for us—and to receive our healing.
Rooted and Grounded In Love
God wants us rooted and grounded in His love for our benefit. Ephesians 3:14-20 says, “For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God” (NKJV).
Being rooted and grounded in love was the main issue with the church at Corinth. Paul wrote that he couldn’t speak to the believers there as spiritual, but as carnal (1 Corinthians 3:1-3). They walked as unchanged men, the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition says. God wants us to be rooted and grounded in Him—in love. He wants us to know everything about Him. He wants us to understand how He who is Love thinks, how He feels, and what He knows.
“Learn of me,” Jesus said (Matthew 11:29).
“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection,” Paul said (Philippians 3:10).
As you continue to know God; as you continue to believe His love, you will begin to receive your healing. Being fully convinced, rooted and grounded in the truth of God’s Love for you makes believing for healing easy. So, today, pray out loud with faith: “God loves me. He gave Himself for me. He is my Lord and Savior. I not only know His love, I believe His love. Even when it looks as though He isn’t moving, I believe. I know He loves and cares for me. I receive His love, now. I receive it in my spirit, in my mind and in my body. Love makes me whole!”
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