Today’s devotion is based on Week 2 of “Resolve”: Live Your Baptism Identity! (WATCH HERE)
To be loved…
Abraham Maslov, a famous psychologist of the 19th century, is best remembered for his “Hierarchy of Needs.” This study and report show that every individual has physical, psychological and self-fulfillment needs. The physical are food and safety. The first of the psychological is to be loved.
This is a secular psychologist who has made this observation about all humanity. Every human being desires to be loved and in fact needs to be loved to function well. Think of your past, probably some of the most difficult times were when you didn’t feel loved. I could have been as simple as a gradeschool friend who no longer wanted to be around you to a high school sweetheart that became an ex-sweetheart. Children who are abandoned or abused by one or both of their parents suffer for a lifetime because of the lack of love.
Not only is one’s psyche affected by the lack of love, when we are not loved, it is difficult to love others. One can only pour out so much love before their love tank is empty and it because extremely difficult, if not impossible to love others.
At Jesus’ baptism, And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son,whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:23)
The Father in heaven wanted his Son to know that he was loved.
Well of course, it’s the perfect Father loving his perfect Son.
But consider this, in many ways Jesus as he was set apart to be the Savior of the world would have to love to a much larger and greater degree than the love he would receive from the people around him.
What would keep him going when all those around him lacked love for him and his mission as the Messiah?
The love of his Father. He could always go back to his Father and know that the most important person in his existence was the first person of the Trinity, the Father in heaven.
What keeps us going when we do not feel loved, especially from the people we have counted on to love us? What keeps us going when we do not feel loved by the people we invest in and serve?
Our baptism allows us to go back to the one love that matters most, our heavenly Father.
1 John 3:1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
We can always go back to our baptism and know that we are fully connected to the love of our heavenly Father who showed that great love through his Son Jesus who demonstrated his love for us by his life and death.
No matter the people who love us or don’t love us, we can know always, that we are truly loved.
Apply: How does it make a difference when you don’t feel loved to know with certainty that you are loved by your heavenly Father?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for a great and lavish love that you have given to me, assuring me that at all times I am truly loved. AMEN.