I am the one He loves…

“The more secure you are in His love the more about Him your life becomes.”

“The One He loves” is now tattooed across my arm, a permanent reminder that I am the one He loves—and so are you. I hope this tattoo becomes a conversation starter, opening the door to share God’s love with believers and non-believers alike. Wait a second, Avery, did you say share the love of God with believers? YES! I have come to the conclusion that many believers are walking around feeling unloved by God. Not because they aren’t loved, but because they don’t know how to receive God’s love.

For years, I was an obedient daughter of God. From the moment He told me at 19 that He had plans for my life if I would just follow Him, I was all in. I broke off an engagement, laid down my dreams and plans—everything for His plans. Obedience has always been a marker of my walk with God. But a few years ago, after 20 years of faithful obedience to God, I found myself feeling dry and frustrated in my faith. What I’ve learned is that obedience is only PART of our relationship with God. In my dryness and frustration, I was honest with God and cried out to Him, and His response was an invitation into a deeper relationship with Him—a call to the secret place of prayer and intimacy.

It had been a long time since I’d had true secret place time with God. I spent time with Him daily, but it was more like spending time with my husband while he’s sitting at the bar and I’m cooking and we are briefly shrinking about the other’s day—not the focused, intimate time that deepens a relationship. There’s a difference when you go into a space and say, “God, have Your way.”

So I accepted the invitation that God gave me that day and began to allow Him to have His way. About a year into this deeper secret place time, I had a life-altering moment with God. I was praying, saying I wanted God’s will more than anything, and then He asked me, “Avery, if you never did another thing for Me again, if I never asked you to do anything more, would you still feel loved by Me?”

That one question exposed so much in my heart. I realized two things: 1) What I did for God (ministry) had become an idol, and 2) I only felt loved by God when I was obedient, AND only if I thought I did a good job. My worth and value were wrapped up in what I did for God.

I was working to earn the love of my Father and didn’t even realize it. This revelation began an unraveling of the bondage of performance that had been tightly wound within me. But more than that, it drew me closer to my Father and led me to experience the love of God Paul speaks of in Ephesians 3—the love that is deeper, wider, higher, longer, and beyond comprehension. I’m writing this now, having experienced that love. Even as I write, waves of that incomprehensible love wash over me, bringing a peace and settledness to my soul that I didn’t know existed before two years ago. My heart aches for every believer to know what I now know.

The problem is, I would have told you I knew God’s love that way before. Ironically, the year before this revelation, I led a group of women through a one-year mentorship on a relationship with God. My key theme was that discipline would eventually turn into desire for God. While I believe you can live a lifetime with God out of discipline and determination, it’s not what He desires for us. We don’t have to earn His love! He has loved us, is loving us, and always will love us—because He is love. Yes, He wants obedient followers, but I’ve learned that obedience FROM love is far more impactful than obedience FOR love. It’s a safer, more secure place. It removes the finish line so many believers strive for: “If I could just read my Bible every day, if I could just serve more, if I could just be better at _______, God would love me more.” No, you are never more loved than you are right now, and God wants you to not only know His love but experience it.

Pastor Matt Chandler says it’s easier for us to feel useful than loved. That was certainly true for me, and I know it is for many others. You should be more in love with God now than when His love first beckoned you by the cross, but so many of us aren’t because we haven’t let God truly love us. We mistakenly think the cross was just about eternity—it wasn’t. The cross was about becoming one with the Father, as Jesus is one with the Father, so that we can love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls, and love others as we have been loved. Just go read John 17: 20-26 and you will see what Jesus wants for you. Actually stop reading and go read it right now, open up your bible and highlight it, mark it, let it be a passage you go to over and over again.

But here’s the problem: We don’t know how to receive that love from God.

Why not? I think it is because so many believers are not rooted in God’s love. We have to learn to let God uproot what is choking out the roots of His love. They might be established in His love—Jesus died for them, and they accepted the gift of salvation—but rooted? I don’t think so. I say this boldly because I lived that way for nearly 20 years, and as a pastor, I see it in others. I was rooted in performance and insecurity, not in the unfailing love of God. How do I know? Because God exposed those roots and their fruit in my life with that one question. Obedience is a beautiful fruit when it comes from the root of love, but when it stems from performing for God’s love, it’s laced with manipulation, vanity, and insecurity. That kind of obedience becomes about you: “God, was that good enough? Are You proud enough? Can I feel some love for it?”

That fruit is unsatisfying because no one can sustain trying to please the God of the universe with their best efforts. Only by being rooted in the unfailing, constant love of the Father can we truly live and obey fully, freely. I now know, without a doubt, that my Father loves me, and nothing I do can change that.

Now, some might worry this means people will just live however they want because God loves them no matter what, but I’ve experienced the opposite. Knowing and experiencing this love beyond understanding has deepened my desire to give God everything. The more I know His love, the more I want Him. The more I know His love, the more I want to lay it all on the line. So much so that it sometimes feels overwhelming. Pastor Matt Chandler says that God doesn’t love some future version of you that you’re trying to become by being a good, obedient child; He loves you now, just as you are. I would add that because He loves you now, He won’t leave you where you are. In His love, He will sanctify and purify you. It’s a beautiful, challenging journey, but because you’re safe in His love, you’re secure enough to walk forward, letting Him expose anything in you that’s keeping you from all He has for you.

It took months after that question for me to be set free from my bondage of performance, but when I was, I was never the same. There are many anchor points in my walk with God, but experiencing His unadulterated, freely given love taking root is one that was supposed to happen a long time ago. It took me 20 years to finally be done with myself and my efforts. I tell people that the moment I repented of my performance and broke agreement with it, God set me free, was like a can of biscuits exploding inside of me—once that packaging is released, there’s no putting it back in. That’s what happened in my heart. The love of God exploded, breaking the roots that had bound me, and His love overcame me. I’ve experienced His love every day since that moment two years ago. I know every believer is meant to experience His love that way and live from it daily because going back to John 17:20-26 Jesus says so. The problem is, most of us don’t give God the time it takes for Him to uproot everything that’s choking out His love. Most of us don’t realize we are meant to be loved by the Father as Jesus was loved by the Father. I want to encourage everyone I meet to go there with God and let Him root you in His love.

I am the one He loves, and so are you. The Sunday after my can-of-biscuits experience, my husband preached about John, the disciple Jesus loved. John often gets a bad rap for that bold statement, but Todd suggested that John actually had the right idea—he claimed to be the one Jesus loved because he experienced it. We are all meant to experience God’s love in a way that’s beyond comprehension. We are all meant to know the same love the Father has for Jesus. It’s this love that will lead you to willingly lay down your life and pick up your cross just as Jesus did. The Father’s love is what enabled Jesus to pray in the garden, “Not my will, but Yours be done.” No follower of Jesus can out-obey Jesus. I believe He could obey so boldly because He knew the Father’s love. He wants us to know that same love. Loved is who we are. What if we all knew it? You are the one He loves!

Below is a little portion of this story shared at our women’s conference.