Believing we are loved

God telling us we are fully loved does not necessarily mean we believe we are fully loved. We can read and clearly see where God says he loves us and even comprehend the reasons for how and why, but that is not necessarily the same as actually believing it. 

If we are to experience and fully participate in the love that God truly has for us we must accept his assessment, fully believing it is true and reject our own or that of others (including Satan, the great accuser and deceiver).

Indications of unbelief…

How do we know if we are not fully believing? If you ever go through a hardship that causes you to question his wisdom, power, presence, or care/love for you; that very questioning is due to unbelief. I am not saying it's uncommon but it's unbelief nevertheless. 

Or if you choose to follow your directions over his directions, this also tells us we trust ourselves more than God; especially when he has clearly shown you an area you do this that you weren't previously aware of.

This questioning or choosing does not actually stop God's love, but it does prevent us from experiencing and fully participating in it.

Possible causes…

This happens for various reasons but perhaps the biggest reason is it is simply too hard for us to accept love offered to us that has nothing to do with whether we are lovely or not i.e. all our experience of being loved prior to God's love is based almost exclusively on our being "good enough" to be loved (the exceptions might be loving parents and family for those blessed enough to have such people in their life). 

It is hard to comprehend that God's love is based solely on someone else being good enough for us, on our behalf i.e. that someone removed the barrier that obstructed God's love for us and we had nothing to do with or for it. It is fully ours because of someone else's efforts. All we must do is believe it - accept it.

Our having trouble accepting Gods love can also be due to being mistreated so severely that we can not believe we are ever worthy of being loved.

Whatever the reason, we are called to believe God loves us not only because he says so but took action to prove it i.e. he told us the reason Christ came and died is because of God's love. In light of this action, the only question now is if God is for us who can be against us? 

What do you say? Do you believe?