The Word the Devil Left Out
The Word the Devil Left Out
By Steve Backlund
One of the greatest truths (if not the greatest truth) we can ever renew our minds with is this: I am unconditionally loved by God. The more deeply this truth becomes established in us; the more it changes how we interpret God, ourselves, other people, our circumstances, and our future.
Romans 5:5 says, “Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” I love that Paul does not describe God's love as something we are only supposed to know intellectually, but he says His love is “poured out” in our hearts. One of the Holy Spirit’s “jobs” is to make God's love increasingly real and experiential to us.
The context of Romans 5:5 makes this even more powerful. Paul talks about how our response to tribulation can produce perseverance, character, and hope. Tribulation by itself does not mature us, but what we believe and how we respond in the midst of it does. Difficult circumstances are not evidence that God has stopped loving us, but the cross is the measure of God's love, and the Holy Spirit makes that love more real in our hearts.
Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” The cross establishes the fact of His love, while the Holy Spirit helps us experience His love.
Love Likes to Repeat Itself
Wendy said something to me years ago that has really stayed with me: “If we don't hear God saying, ‘I love you,’ regularly, then maybe we don't hear God as well as we think we do.” Yikes. That hit me.
Imagine a parent saying to a child, “Now listen carefully because I'm only going to say this once. I love you. Remember that because I'm never going to say it again.” A healthy parent does not think that way. We tell our children and grandchildren we love them again and again—not because the previous statement stopped being true, but because love delights in communicating love. And our heavenly Father is even better at loving than we are.
The Word the Devil Left Out
At Jesus' baptism, the Father declared, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Immediately afterward, Jesus entered the wilderness, and the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread” (Matthew 4:3). Notice what the devil left out. The Father said, “My beloved Son.” The devil said, “the Son of God.” He left out beloved.
I don't think that is insignificant. The devil did not first challenge Jesus' ability to perform a miracle, but he challenged the place from which Jesus would live. The Father had established Jesus in beloved identity, and the enemy attempted to create a question around that identity.
Our enemy knows that when we become deeply convinced we are loved, most of his lies lose their power.
Rejection loses its power
Failure cannot define us anymore
We don't need people's approval in the same way
We don't have to prove our worth through accomplishments
Our obedience increasingly becomes a response to love rather than an attempt to earn it
The Father speaks “beloved identity”. The enemy regularly questions it. We get to strengthen our agreement with what the Father has said.
Knowing What Passes Knowledge
In Ephesians 3:14–19, Paul prays that we would be “rooted and grounded in love,” comprehend “the width and length and depth and height,” and “know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.”
What an amazing thought. Paul wants us to personally experience a love that our minds can never fully comprehend. God's love can be truly known without ever being exhaustively known. We can spend our lives exploring its dimensions and continually discover, “It is bigger than I thought.”
This is more than having correct theology about God's love. Paul is praying that this truth would become revelation and experience—that at the deepest levels of our hearts we would become increasingly convinced, “I am deeply loved.” Perhaps Christian maturity is not moving beyond the simple truth that God loves us, but discovering just how enormous those words really are.
Paul then connects knowing this love with being “filled with all the fullness of God,” followed by the “exceedingly abundantly above” of Ephesians 3:20. We often quote verse 20 by itself, but Paul didn't start there. The more rooted we become in God's limitless love, the more our thinking expands concerning what He can do in us and through us.
Living From Love
The greatest battle of our lives may not be trying harder to love God, but becoming increasingly convinced of how much He already loves us. First John 4:19 says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” Our love is a response to His love. The more rooted we become in what He has initiated, the more freely we can respond.
This is why what we believe is so important. We aren't trying to talk God into loving us or working harder to become worthy of His love. We are renewing our minds so our beliefs increasingly agree with what the cross has already demonstrated and what the Holy Spirit is making real in our hearts.
We Get to Hear It Again
Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). We need God's words concerning His promises, our identity in Christ, and His direction for our lives; but perhaps the most important words proceeding from the Father's heart and mouth toward us today is not a new assignment, strategy, or prophetic insight. It may simply be the word the devil left out: Beloved.
Even if we heard Him say it yesterday, we get to hear it again today. Love indeed likes to repeat itself. “You are My beloved. I love you.”
Declarations:
I am deeply, presently, and personally loved by God.
The cross has forever settled the question of whether I am loved.
I hear God tell me every day, “I love you.”
I am feeling God’s love more and more with each new day.
I increasingly know the love of Christ that passes knowledge.
