experience the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. We long to be lovers of
God. This has been my dream and consuming desire for many years.
When I first heard God's promise to make me a fervent lover, it seemed too
good ever to be fulfilled. Yet Jesus' words gave me hope: “'”You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind”'”
(Matt. 22:37, NKJV, emphasis added).
He was saying that my heart could burn with love for Him. This is the
supernatural power we long for that He has promised to give.
We often see ourselves as failures. But Jesus does not define us by our
immaturity. He sees us as genuine lovers of God.
Why? Because He knows the cries of our hearts and gives us the enabling power
to love Him in a genuine way. Here is the way His plan to impassion us works:
Our hearts are renewed and empowered to love by knowing two things: first,
God's passionate personality and second, who we are to Him. Love feeds on truth,
and when our hearts begin to know the truth of how God loves and desires us and
who we are to Him, we are transformed from being weak in heart to bold in love.
When we understand the passions of God's personality, our hearts become alive
in love, and we have the ability to enjoy Him. There is no greater revelation
than the revelation of the heart of Jesus to us. God radiates with love for His
people. He looks upon us in great delight and enjoyment.
Knowing this changes our emotional chemistry. We are invigorated and
strengthened by the revelation of His amazing affection. We are renewed by the
knowledge of what we look like to Him.
Our spiritual identity is determined by the way God sees us, which is
different from how others perceive us and how we perceive ourselves. God has
purposed that we define ourselves according to the way He feels about us and by
what He declares over our lives.
Our tendency is to determine our identity and assess our value by how well we
perform spiritual disciplines or how we look spiritually to others. We have
grown accustomed to deriving our sense of worth by how we measure up spiritually
rather than by how God sees us. This causes us to become slaves to the religious
opinions of people rather than being free in the love of God.
It leads to a misinterpretation of who we really are, which is who we are
before God. We judge ourselves as hopeless hypocrites instead of genuine lovers
of God.
Whether we succeed or fail, when we determine our worth by other people's
perception of us, we are doomed to feel like failures. The Lord designed us to
find wholeness in Him and security in His declaration of beauty and success over
our lives. He created our hearts so that only in this realignment will we find
joy and comfort.
The enemy attempts to destroy our confidence before God by causing us to
imagine that God despises us. Believing these accusations leads to distorted
images of God and an unclear perception of what we look like to Him. With these
untruths hovering over us, we become paralyzed by the feeling that God is
disappointed with us. We lose all motivation to persevere and press in to the
Lord. We lose the energy to seek His face wholeheartedly.
The truth about God's heart is the weapon to combat the accusations of the
enemy. The revelation of God's delight in us renders void these accusations and
causes us to become empowered for righteousness. Truth transforms us. Meditation
on His Word progressively washes away the wrong images we have of God and the
wrong impressions we have of who we are to God.
As we enter into agreement with God about what He looks like and what we look
like to Him, the darkness of Satan's lies is overcome.
This article is from the July
2001 issue of Charisma
Curt Landry 
Michael L. Brown 
Rabbi Eric Tokajer 
