Tag Archives: love

The One Reason You Deserve Massive Respect

Imagine you take your car or truck to a mechanic, and just as you walk out, you notice something. On the floor is a towel with one of your favorite pictures of yourself on it. But people are not respecting it. They walk right across your likeness over and over, wiping their shoes on it as they go. Then you notice more. The cashier has begun cleaning the desk with another towel bearing the same photo, wiping up grease and spilled coffee. She sees the angst on your face and dismisses your concern with, “Oh, we go through a lot of those, about a thousand every three months. This place stays a mess. We always keep a bunch of boxes in the back.”

You would likely find that behavior rather offensive. It’s not because of the inherent value of the cloths, though. It’s because of whose image is on it.

Similarly, you and I and all humans deserve tremendous respect for one reason only – we bear God’s image. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). We have his photo printed on us, so to speak.

To say it a different way, everything good about you is part of God that He put on display through you. Creativity, love of music, healing the sick, and being organized are a few things that were present in God first, which he maybe now puts on display through you. That is precisely why you have those characteristics. We might say he created you so he could tell the world, “This is an example of what I am like.” Other good traits about Him – and you – may include being scientific, a good leader, a good listener, or a nature lover. He loves animals. He loves babies and little kids. He likes strength. Loyalty and honesty in friendship are high priority for him, and love is of utmost importance.

That is exactly why you deserve to be treated with dignity, and it means so many things for you. It’s ok for you to stand up for yourself (e.g., “Treat me with dignity or we can’t be close”), or even to leave an abusive relationship. Abuse is never how his image – you – deserves to be treated. Even if someone dislikes you, they still owe you dignity. Nobody gets to say or act like you are worthless or ‘less than’ or an unwanted mistake. Those are lies, because God and God alone has the right to define you, no one else. After all, he made you in his image, with his photo printed on you. We aren’t equal with God, but he did fashion us to portray him in many ways.

It’s ok for you to have an opinion because you matter. When someone cuts you down for feeling upset, excited, or any other feeling, they have made a grave mistake. That’s because God’s image deserves never to be insulted or invalidated. You reflect God’s nature by the good things in you, so nobody gets to tell you your feelings are stupid. Not all emotions are healthy to hold onto, and many should never be acted upon. But, you have the right to feel what you feel. Even your emotions are part of God sharing with the world a sample of what he is like, because he had emotions first. They’re part of Who He Is.

He wept, John 11:35.

He grieved, Luke 19:41-44.

He got angry over injustice and hypocrisy, Luke 11:37-52.

He felt joy, John 15:11.

He had compassion, Mark 6:34.

Everything good about you is God showing the world, “This is what I am like.” And that is why you deserve massive respect.

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You may also enjoy Boundaries as an Act of Worship in Three Paragraphs, https://freespiritseedcompany.com/2023/03/19/boundaries-as-an-act-of-worship-in-three-paragraphs/,

and Everything Good About You is Part of God that He Put on Display Through You, https://freespiritseedcompany.com/2025/02/11/everything-good-about-you-is-part-of-god-that-he-put-on-display-through-you/

You’re Broken, Not Defective

You might be broken, but you’re not defective. They’re not the same thing, not at all.

You could think of it like this. You make a clay pot and put it in the kiln. When you take it out, the handle falls off, and the bottom crumbles. That’s defective. It wasn’t made well. It’s junk. You make another clay pot and it turns out beautiful. Then someone drops it on the floor. Now it’s broken. It was made perfectly, but later it got damaged.

That is me, and maybe you, too. Most importantly, it’s Jesus. Brokenness is something he, you, and I all have in common. He was perfect, but he got thrown on the floor and broken. He was abused, taken advantage of, and violated in the worst possible way. (See also
https://freespiritseedcompany.com/2022/01/22/2/)

He was broken — all the way broken — maybe just like you.

Your heavenly Father defines who you are, not your brokenness.

He was forsaken by his friends, beaten repeatedly, tortured.

But that is very different from being defective.

Your heavenly Father defines who you are, not your brokenness. Not other people. And not even you. He made you wonderful, the Bible says (Psalm 139:14). He is The Highest Artisan, and he personally handcrafted you, right there in your mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13).

Maybe someone lied and said you’re a mistake, an accident, should never have been born. I’m gonna be honest and say your Creator drew the detailed blueprints for you way before you were ever conceived. Before time began, to tell the truth. So no, you’re no accident. You have purpose. You should ask him to reveal that to you. It might be as simple as, “He put me here to praise him.”

A defective pot is worthless and useless. But a handsome, beautiful pot that has been shattered only needs to be put back together. He can do that with you, just like happened with Jesus. It’s his specialty.

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.” ‭‭Joel‬ ‭2‬:‭25‬ ‭ESV‬‬

That is an agricultural image. Picture endless miles of crops. Millions of insects descend on it, devour, and leave it in shreds. Maybe that is like many of the years in your life. It is mine. Somehow, he is slowly restoring to me ‘the years the locust has eaten,’ piece by piece. He’s putting my broken pieces back in place. It’s mysterious, but he can repay to you everything you lost, as he promised. Just keep following him, and don’t give up.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭5‬:‭17‬ ‭ESV‬‬
If he can make us from the dust, can’t he remake us, too?

“But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭64‬:‭8‬ ‭ESV‬‬

It’s Ok If You’re Afraid

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Luke 12:32

Somebody is afraid. Maybe with good reason. God is not angry at you for feeling scared. Are you going to bring it to him? Or carry it yourself. He is not mad, but just understand you don’t have to be afraid.

Isn’t that what Psalm 23 is about? “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.” That means you’re surrounded by evil. It’s dark, shadowy. The normal response is to fear. Father says you can be inside the evil and not fear it because He is with you in it.

Boundaries as an Act of Worship, in Three Paragraphs

God has boundaries. He says if we are going to come to him, we have to come through Jesus, and that’s how it’s going to be. If we want to draw even closer to him, we must treat him with respect and humility. If we do, we’re welcome into his personal space, if not, we are not.

Because he loves us, he’s in the business of replacing our human-minded ways with his more deeply satisfying ones. He is, in fact, making us just like himself. “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” ‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭29‬ ‭ESV‬‬. “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” ‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭3‬:‭18‬a ESV‬‬

We worship him by our actions when we behave just like him. Our lifestyle is a constant, moment by moment declaration to God that we love him when we celebrate the things that bring him pleasure, cherish what he loves most, hate what he despises, and have healthy boundaries. Just like him.

The Grass on Your Shoe

Next time you walk into your house with a piece of grass on your shoe, think about this scripture. Then maybe upgrade the way you think about your enemies (physical, political, etc.).

“Fret not yourself because of evildoers; be not envious of wrongdoers! For they will soon fade like the grass [tan wisps on your shoe that degrade into dust] and wither like the green herb.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭37‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭ESV

Maybe fear, anger, or bitterness are not the best response. If we saw them how God does, we would ‘fret not’ because they are already fading like dead, brown grass.

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More Important than Loving God?

First off, you probably already know how Jesus summarized the most important commands for humans. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Matthew 22:37-40

So love God and love each other. What could possibly be more fundamental? Maybe: whatever empowers and motivates us to obey those commands. That, I think, is God’s love toward us.

“We love because he first loved us.”
1 John 4:19

You can be nice to anyone out of sheer will power, at least for a few minutes. But that is not why we treat our good friends well. We’re kind to our closest friends because it just flows out of us naturally. We don’t have to ‘try.’ In fact, we may even be nicer to other people when we’re around that friend because that’s just the effect they have on us.

Similarly, the more time you spend meditating or thinking about the love of God for you personally, the more you will find love spontaneously coming out of you toward God and others. Knowing he loves us makes love flow out of us naturally.

The only thing more important than receiving God’s love for us is Who He Is in himself. He, of course, is Love. “God is love,” I John 4:8.

This is good news for those of us who feel undeserving, because it recalibrates everything. Do you see it? Where is the focus when we think, “How could God love me? I don’t deserve it. I’ve done all these bad things?” Yeah, that’s what we say we are looking at ourselves. Which is why this verse is so great. When we look away from self to Father, we go, “Oh, now I get it. He doesn’t love me because of me. He loves me because of him.” Like when people say, “Well, that’s just the way I am.” And God is saying, “I am loving because that’s just the way I am.”

The very most important thing is Who God Is.

So, the more time and effort we invest into finding out what his personality is like, what makes him tick, the better we’ll understand why he has so much affection for us.

And the more we realize how deeply we are loved, the more it naturally transforms us into loving people. It takes less and less effort (although it still takes effort) and becomes more second nature. And that makes it a zillion times easier to love God and others.

When talking about God as our Father, sometimes I think of my dad — who happens to be a very good one — and I think how God is similar to him. But the other day somebody upgraded my thinking.

God was a Father before my dad was, right? So it’s probably more accurate to say it the other way around. My dad is a tiny bit like God is, rather than God resembles my dad.

Both statements are true, of course. My point is not to split hairs, only to say everything good we experience, if we get right down to it, originated inside God himself.

For example, the Bible says, “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” Romans 11:36. That would include trustworthiness and generosity for example. Humans didn’t invent those.

So if your best friend can be trusted and likes to give and share a lot, it’s kind of like God is saying, “I put this person in your life to show you a bit about what I’m really like.”

Or if somebody is merciful, he is saying, “Here is a little glimpse of what it’s like to be around me.”

All the good and delightful things we experience are peeks into what Father’s character is like. Each displays part of his nature that he’s invited us to dive deeper into. It’s all to draw us into closer communion with him.

Grief, I’m thinking, also shows a bit about what goes on in his heart. If he made us like him — “in his image” the Bible says in Genesis 1:26 — everything about us (except sin) would probably reflect part of who he is. Creativity … engineering … anger when people mess with your kids … writing poetry … jealousy if your spouse is cheating … laughter … love for great music. And grief.

I’m getting a little deep here, but I think grief is another way God is giving us a view into how he feels.

“Jesus wept.”
John 11:35

“And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.”
Genesis 6:6

“And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God“
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭4‬:‭30‬a

He’s letting us experience what he experiences.

How do you think he felt the day his Son died?

Loss is not necessarily good. But the ability to grieve over it is.

And the experience of grief is something God felt before we did. If knowing his heart is important for us, this is probably another way he is letting us ‘in,’ making us a little more like him. He felt all that we feel, and he felt it first.

We can say, “Jesus, I am completely devastated. I feel like my heart has been ripped out of my chest and crushed into pulp.” And he can say, “Yep. Me, too. Been there.”

That, of course, isn’t the whole story.

He is also the Party God. He invented succulent food, warm friendship, perfect sunny weather, children, lovers, laughter and comedy. When we enjoy any wholesome pleasure, he is again letting us feel what he experiences. Plus, if we consider what the Bible promises us in the next life (consider reading Heaven by Randy Alcorn), the real parties haven’t even started yet.

Forty Ways Jesus is Like Me, and Maybe You, #9

He got soaking wet in a river.

“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. ‘Mark 1:9-10

Picture it. You’ve seen rivers. Most of them are a little murky. Maybe the water was high from rains upstream, with leaves and muddy twigs in eddies swirling beside the bank.

Up he comes out of the water, the same way we do. Wet hair sticks to his face. He’s drenched. Water dribbles off his sopping clothes, the drip, drip, dripping of clear beads from his beard back onto the river.

Stepping ashore, he leaves a soaked, muddy trail in the dry dirt, which fades after twenty minutes in the sun.

Maybe he went swimming afterwards. Why not? He was human.

Eleven Lines to My Younger Self

My friend, Rob Mullins, used to say, “People don’t care what you know till they know that you care.”  I bristled at that because I saw the world as black and white.  “People should listen to the truth because it’s right!”  That’s what I thought back then.

Twenty some years later, I see that Rob was right.

“And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13:2

If I have all knowledge but I don’t show that I care about my fellow humans, I am a noisy gong, a clanging cymbal.

Truth and love go together.  If you love someone you must tell them the truth.  But first they have to know you love them.  That’s how Jesus did it.