Faith Filled Family

Enhanced – Listen: to the audio article

with Steve Demme

had just finished speaking on Deuteronomy 6:7 when a mom approached me and asked why I had not mentioned verses five and six. As I read them a light bulb went on: As a parent I could not help my children love God and His word until I loved God and His Word.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

—Deuteronomy 6:5–7, ESV

When Jesus was asked which was the great commandment in the law, He quoted this exact passage, and added:

“This is the great and first commandment.”

—Matthew 22:38, ESV

Another light bulb went on and I wondered why I had not been asking myself if I loved God since this was the first and most important command?

Then the thought came to mind, “Am I an Ephesian?” God spoke to the church at Ephesus and said:

“I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.”

—Revelation 2:3–4, ESV

They had done so many things well, but their priorities were misplaced.

“I believe this invitation is still open to the church. God desires, to all who hear His gentle knocking, to go deeper with them. But we have to open the door from the inside.”

Determined

I began to pray earnestly that God would help me love Him with all my heart, soul, and might. I was convinced He would answer this prayer because it was according to His will.

“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”

—1 John 5:14–15, ESV

But I was surprised by how He answered. I expected to awaken in the morning to the songs of angels and be infatuated anew with my God. I thought He would plant a deep desire in my heart to love and draw near to my Heavenly Dad!

Instead He began to reveal His love to me in hymns, Scriptures, and sermons. It seemed that I was being made aware of His love everywhere I turned. I told Him that while I appreciated learning more about His affection for me, I wanted to love Him more. Instantly the Spirit brought this passage to mind:

“We love because he first loved us.”

—1 John 4:19, ESV

I now recognize this as the work of the Holy Spirit, for:

“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”

—Romans 5:5, ESV

view of man's back while he's sitting in the sand at a beach

Baggage

Not only was God teaching me more about His love, He was also showing me how my own baggage—a lifetime of scars, wounds, trauma, and unhealthy experiences—were hindering my ability to comprehend His care and affection. I know that God is not only loving, He is love. Every atom, or whatever God is composed of, oozes love. God is good. God is a perfect Father. He is compassionate and merciful. Yet I had difficulty comprehending this truth in my heart of hearts. I had to face my baggage which was painful, but necessary. As I worked through issues of abandonment, feeling like I was never enough, and that I had to work for His smile, God began to unpack my stuff and set me from it.

Several years later, God made me know that when I asked Him to help me love Him more, I opened the door, allowing Him to work deep in my heart. When He said this, I knew exactly what He meant.

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

—Revelation 3:20, ESV

I believe this invitation is still open to the church. God desires, to all who hear His gentle knocking, to go deeper with them. But we have to open the door from the inside.

If you desire more of God, and are willing to confront your stuff, consider praying this prayer. The wording is a little different from what many of us have heard in the past, but I believe it is faithful to the original Hebrew, “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my “anxious thoughts!” And see if there be any “way of pain” in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23–24). I have learned through experience that anxious thoughts and ways of pain are connected to historical events, which when examined, lead to the way everlasting.

I was not expecting my life to change so drastically when I opened my heart to God’s heart, but God is faithful. He has helped me to confront my wounds while at the same time assimilating His love and grace in a whole new way. As a result, I now find myself loving God as never before.

I am trying to be succinct, but if you want more info about my journey, you may access the book Crisis to Christ as an audio or PDF.

More Love to Thee O God

As I meditated on the plight of the Ephesian church in Revelation, I decided to reread the book of Ephesians to see if I could glean wisdom from Paul’s ministry to this church. I encountered some of the most wonderful expressions of God’s grace such as:

“God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”

—Ephesians 2:4–6, ESV

I also discovered a prayer of Paul’s for these believers which I have prayed many times for myself.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father…that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

—Ephesians 3:14,16–20, ESV

As I prayed I also searched the Scriptures. One of the most powerful verses was:

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”

—John 15:9, ESV

Jesus was addressing His closest disciples and made them know that He loved them just as His Father loved Him. Wow! I had no doubt of the Father’s love for Jesus, but to have that same love extended to us, was and is, incredible.

Up until this time, I had no doubt that God loved others; my problem was that I struggled to believe that He loved me. I desperately wanted to know that God not only loved the world, but that He liked me. I dug a little deeper into the relationship of the Father and the Son and as I did, the Spirit led me to the baptism of Jesus. As Jesus emerged from the water, the heavens opened, the Spirit alighted as a dove, and the most wonderful words a son can hear from his dad flowed from the Father’s heart.

“This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.”

—Matthew 3:17, NLT

I believe we each, Jesus included, have a profound longing to know that we belong, that we are beloved, and that we are pleasing to our Father, on earth as well as heaven. God the Father, knowing how we are wired, met our deepest need with these inspired words.

Connecting the Dots

Let’s put it all together.

Consider what Jesus has done for us—taking our sins upon Himself, clothing us in His righteousness, and adopting us into His family.
Couple that with the fact that “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” (John 15:9)
Then we can be assured that when the Father sees us, He says the same words, “You are my dearly loved son/daughter, who brings me great joy.” This is great news. This is the truth that sets us free!

As I have reveled in this newfound understanding and comprehension of God’s love for each of His children, my own love for God has increased. I love my Heavenly Dad as never before!

Knowing that God is for me, that He smiles each and every time I draw close to Him, has led me to begin waiting on God and spending time in His presence. For over four decades I rarely spent time being still with God. Why should I, if I was not convinced that he liked me? I cannot convey the awesome privilege I have experienced communing silently with my Dad. I have tasted and seen that God is indeed good, and kind.

Once again, I have also written of Knowing God’s Love available here.

Doubts

When doubts come, I wield the sword of the Spirit and put them to death. Some of my most effective passages for declaring the truth are:

“God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

—Romans 5:8, ESV

“But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

—Romans 8:37–39, NASB

“God is love.”

—1 John 4:8b, ESV

“I am the Lord, and I do not change.”

—Malachi 3:6, NLT

In a nutshell, He loved us when we were unlovable. Nothing can separate us from His love. He is love. He doesn’t change. Amen!

I would like to close with this benediction from 2 Corinthians 13:14 (NLT), “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Amen!

Abiding in His love,

teve Demme and his wife Sandra have been married since 1979. They have been blessed with four sons, three lovely daughters-in-law, and six special grandchildren. Their fourth son has Down syndrome and lives with them in Lititz, PA. Steve has served in full or part-time pastoral ministry for many years after graduating from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He is the creator of Math-U-See and the founder of Building Faith Families.

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