One of the most insidious strategies of Satan is to convince us that we are unworthy of anyones love. I have battled this in my own life and I constantly see it as a huge hindrance in the lives of believers. It begins in our childhood when parents or other parent surrogates do and say things that communicate we don’t measure up and that we have failed to earn their love or approval. Those things may be a constant drip of criticism that communicates the child is never good enough and never meets the parents standards or it may be in the form of abuse or angry outbursts. Those behaviors leave the child with a deep conviction that he or she is somehow defective and deserving of the physical or verbal abuse. The other side of the coin that has the same effect is neglect or abandonment. When a child’s needs are not met, when a parent never has time for the child, when a parent is emotionally unavailable or physically leaves, the child is left with the impression that he or she doesn’t matter. The belief is, “There must be something terribly wrong with me for them to always be angry, never be pleased, never have time for me, or to leave me.”
As adults, we carry the imprint of that rejection and live with the fear that if anyone really knew us, they would not love us. We may also live with a belief that sooner or later the person who says they love us will leave us. Demonic spirits love to come in and amplify the thoughts that we are unworthy of love, that others only pretend to care for us, or that eventually we will be abandoned again by those we love and need. He accuses us day and night of our unworthiness.
One response to that belief and ongoing accusation is that we close our hearts and quit loving in order to avoid the anticipated pain of rejection. We may never express our needs because we believe we and our needs don’t matter or that our needs won’t be met and we will feel rejection all over again. Of course, the other strategy to avoid pain is to become a control freak believing the only way to avoid being hurt or abandoned again is to control everything and everyone in our lives. The irony is that the very behaviors we employ to keep people from leaving or hurting us actually drive them away.
The most devastating part of this strategy is the belief that we are unworthy keep us from believing that even God can love us. The premise about love that we are sold as children and that sets us up for Satan’s lie is that love always has to be earned by doing enough or by being enough. If that were true, only God could be loved because the rest of us and even the best of us always fall short in someway.
The truth is we actually love imperfect people all the time. They are called children. They cannot express themselves well. They are by nature selfish. They constantly mess up our house. They cannot tie their own shoes. They take and rarely give back. Yet we love them because we love them. They have done nothing to earn our love, yet we give them our best all the time, unless we are horrifically broken.
The truth is, we aren’t loved because we do better. We do better because we are loved. God’s constant message to us that we were a mess when he came looking for us and are still a bit of a mess today, but he loves us inspite of our shortcomings. If we cannot accept the fact that he loves us because of who he is rather than because of who we are, Satan wins. Without a belief and a revelation of God’s love, we can never love him back or pray with any faith that he will meet our needs. We can never worship him with passion. In fact, until we feel loved, we struggle to love the imperfect others, even though he commands us to do so.
I believe the only way out is for God to give us a revelation of his non-performance based love and how he sees us. Paul told the Ephesians, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better (Eph.1:17). Keep asking the Father to give you a Holy Spirit revelation of his love for you…just as you are. The sneaking fear that we aren’t good enough or haven’t done enough to deserve God’s love is a trap and a lie. Love is given, it is not earned. Most of the time, when someone asks, why you love them, you can’t really answer. You love them because you love them. You can love them, even when you don’t like them. That is why teenagers survive to live into their 20’s.
Make that your constant prayer and, by faith, thank God ten times a day that he loves you deeply. When you start to accept that truth, you will able to trust him for your care, give up your control, be yourself, be transparent, love others and accept their love for you. May the Lord bless you with a revelation of his amazing love for you. Blessings in Him.
