God Does Not Love Us Out Of Obligation

Vikki Waters • March 8, 2016

The Passion Translation of Psalm 84 gives us a beautiful picture of God’s wrap-around arms:

God, Your wrap around presence is our defense. In Your kindness, look upon the faces of Your anointed ones….For the Lord God is brighter than the brilliance of a sunrise! Wrapping Himself around me like a shield, He is so generous with His gifts of grace and glory! (Psalm 84:9, 11 PT).

This is God’s promise to us. Yet, many of us have a very hard time believing it. For a variety of reasons, we find ourselves unlovable, and though we know in our heads that God loves us, we do not really believe it in our hearts. We have a hard time believing He is really as optimistic and positive about us as the Bible says.

We think, Sure, God loves me, because He is God and that’s the holy thing to do, but I doubt He really likes or enjoys me. In this way, we interpret His love as an obligation and miss the reality—that it is the overflow of His heart toward us. Yes, we did nothing to earn it, and it is not based on our performance, but it is based on who we are as His kids. God loves who we are in the truest and most intimate sense.

He loves us at our core, and because of that, He is patient with our weaknesses. Truly, He is the best of fathers.

This is an excerpt from  my new book Loved Like Jesus.

I wrote it because I want you to experience the deep love that your heavenly Father has for you. Living from this reality as a much loved son or daughter, you can rest in a confident connection with Him and experience abundant living and lasting freedom.

Order my book today for yourself and an extra copy for a friend, your pastor and/or your small group.

Thanking Him for you,

Vikki

Searching for love in all the wrong places? It’s time to experience the Father’s love.

By Vikki Waters • September 20, 2021
Not long ago, I learned that when I was a baby, one of my primary caregivers regularly told me that my mother didn’t love me and that’s why she left me to go to work every day. Of course, when this was discovered, my parents found a new babysitter, but the invisible damage had already been done. Although I...

Child of God, Are You Driven By Performance Or Love?

By Vikki Waters • February 9, 2021
When I’d accepted Jesus into my heart, I’d allowed my driven personality and my wounds from the past to inform my faith, and I became a works-oriented Christian. Somehow, though I’d been wooed by God’s unconditional love, once I was in His Kingdom, I was driven by performance, not by love. This, I was discovering, was contrary to what the...

Are you weary? God’s Presence brings rest.

By Vikki Waters • July 10, 2020
God works because of love, not obligation, and it is this reality that He invites us into when He calls us co-heirs and rulers with Christ. Paul describes exactly this quality in the believers in Thessalonica: “We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in...

“Rest and acceptance once felt out of reach…” – Larry’s Testimony

By Vikki Waters • November 4, 2017
I grew up in a fairly normal American Christian family being the youngest of five children. A couple of times a week as a family we went to a mainstream evangelical church. At the age of nine I was baptized because some of my friends were but I didn’t really understand what it meant. I...

Introduced to peace and lasting joy through GGM — Meet Deb!

By Vikki Waters • October 24, 2017
When Deb Mileur said, “I do” to Jesus in 1988, she fell so in love with the Bible that she began sleeping with it under her pillow; she read it, highlighted it, memorized and taught it. In 2009, during a friend’s visit to India (where Deb and her family lived as missionaries), she learned about...

“I’ve experienced the breakthroughs firsthand…” – Meet Stephanie

By Vikki Waters • October 16, 2017
Stephanie Johns joined the prayer team at GGM in late 2015. Her introduction to GGM was at the suggestion of her daughters after the death of her husband in July 2013. She experienced firsthand the breakthroughs the ministry could help facilitate as that very day she took a huge leap forward in her grief journey....

“I’m so proud of the people who say “yes” to God and freedom!” — Meet GGM’s Anne Armstrong!

By Vikki Waters • October 11, 2017
Anne Armstrong unofficially joined the Growing in Grace Ministry (GGM) family in December of 2010 after receiving her first SOZO there.  Anne was referred to GGM by a former ministry team member after sharing her heart and struggles about feeling “stuck” in certain areas of her life. Even before finding healing for herself at GGM,...

From strict religion to a true relationship! – Sunda’s Story

By Vikki Waters • September 3, 2017
Before coming to Growing in Grace, my life was a mess. I was in pain, I was angry, I was confused and I only knew God through religion’s eyes. I was raised in a very conservative and strict religion and that is how I saw God. I always felt His eyes of displeasure on me...

You Don’t Have To Do This Alone

By Vikki Waters • June 30, 2017
About three and a half months into my husband Richard’s out-of-state job, I realized I had been internalizing my resentment about being alone. On the weekends, we focused on being together, but during the week I focused on keeping busy with ministry and activity. Inside, I felt depressed and tired. These feelings were an old default that I had become...

Let Down Your Walls

By Vikki Waters • June 22, 2017
Though Jesus had become my Savior, the walls barricading my heart remained. Some of them softened, but many of them were my closest allies. It’s hard, even for Jesus, to have a relationship with someone who has walls like I did. I only had so much capacity for His love. Because I didn’t believe He really loved me unless...
Show More