God loves you as you are
Although they say that times have changed, and of the constant struggle of many for equality, there are those who carry within themselves that struggle, nonconformity or inferiority, as a continuous battle in the mind, where they judge their physique, their academic level, their social position and everything that is presented in their thoughts, leaving aside the acceptance and gratitude to God for what in their kindness and mercy has given them.
Want to have more of what you have or be better than you are is not bad, because to struggle to get ahead, to meet your goals and aspirations speaks of a person who seeks to excel and excel, the problem comes when you start to compare yourself with others or to feel inferior to them. Sometimes without even thinking about it, seeing others who do well, how they look or how much they have begins to be a hard measure of comparison that only causes you to feel incomplete, reduce importance to what you do or end up Believe that according to what you have is what you are worth.
- If today is one of those days when for some reason thoughts of inferiority have passed through your mind, if you have thought that you are a simple coincidence of life or in your heart there is any kind of feeling that tells you that you are not important enough! IS A LIE! Just think for a moment who formed you from the womb of your mother, to whom you are like, where all the blessings come from, do you know? It's from God! He has shaped you gently and carefully and with a purpose that will not remain half-hearted.
Do not compare yourself with anyone, God made each person different, some with some qualities others with others, according to their plans and projects, what you have today He has given you, and what you need Who has told you not to can you give it to him? God makes everything perfect, therefore you are a perfect creation of God, He loves you as you are, loves every one of the qualities you have even those you may not have discovered, God does not care about your physical appearance because for Him You are the most beautiful creature, you do not care about your material possessions because He is the owner of gold and silver, and therefore he will not let you need anything.
Put aside those sad thoughts and comparisons that only cause you not to realize the true value you have, God's plans for your life go far beyond what you can imagine, what you have prepared for you is more than what your eyes today can see, tall or short, thin or chubby, rich or poor, what's the difference? That is wrapping, God loves your heart
My God, you were the one who formed me in my mother's womb. You were the one who formed every part of my body. I am a wonderful creation, and for that I thank you. Everything you do is wonderful, I'm sure of that!
Psalm 139: 13-14 (Translation in current language)
God loves us
Revelation does not try to tell us what God is in himself, but what he is for us. It does not intend to manifest its nature, its being and its identity, but, rather, its behavior with us. It has, therefore, a meaning that we could call 'functional'. By saying, then, that "God is Love" (1 Jn 4:16), he simply states that God loves us. And that love is the only reason and the sole reason for all his actions with respect to us. He creates us through love, he preserves us in being for love, he chooses us and calls us in Christ for love, and for love predestines us, from all eternity, to be his children in his only Son, by a real configuration and mystical identification with the. Of course, by manifesting what God is for us, he also tells us, and at the same time, what God is in himself. Your behavior with us, reveals, in fact, your true identity.
The maximum expression of the love that God is and of the love that God has for us, is called Jesus Christ. He is the supreme manifestation, the epiphany and the ultimate demonstration that God is love and loves us. "In this the love that God has for us was manifested: in that God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent us his Son as the propitiation for our sins "(1 Jn 4, 9-10). "God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son" (Jn 3:16). "The proof that God loves us is that Christ, while we are still sinners, died for us" (Rom 5, 8).
Now, we could ask ourselves: Why does God love us? And we will have to answer that the reason and the reason of his love for us are not in ourselves, but in him. God loves us because he is Love, and it is very worthy of love to love. The love of God does not suppose, but it creates in us the goodness and the beauty His look makes us good and pleasing to his eyes, because it imprints in us the image of the Son of his indulgences. Therefore, to really know Christ and to believe in him, is to truly know God and to believe in his love. And to truly believe in the love of God is to believe in Christ. "We, confesses John, have known the love that God has for us and we have believed in him" (1 Jn 4:16). All Christian spiritual life is reduced, ultimately, to truly believe that God loves us, gratefully recognizing and accepting that love with trembling freedom.
"He loved us first" (1 Jn 4:19)
The love of God is, without doubt, possible before ours. "He loved us first," says the Evangelist John (cf. 1 Jn 4:19). The initiative is not ours, but yours. And he loves us "for ourselves", looking only for our good. The council affirms that the human person is the only terrestrial creature "whom God loves because of herself" (GC 24). God loves us because it is us. And it's us because he loves us, because his love creates us and recreates us. "He has loved us first," recalls Benedict XVI opportunely, in his encyclical "Deus caritas est" (25-I-06), - and continues to love us first; therefore, we can also correspond with love ... He loves us and makes us see and experience his love, and from this 'before' of God, love can also be born in us as an answer "(DCE 17).
To say love is to say gratuity. And to say Absolute love is to say absolute gratuity. Love is a reason for oneself, an end of oneself, a fruit and a reward for oneself. When you really love, you love yourself simply for love. Nothing is sought in return. Saint Bernard expressed it very well: "Love is enough by itself, it pleases for itself and for its cause. He is his own merit and his prize. Love excludes all other motives and other fruits that are not themselves. Its fruit is its experience. I love because I love; I love to love "
"We love because we are loved"
The love of God is not only previous to ours, but cause and origin, the living root of our love for him and for others. "Amati, amamus: We love, because we are loved", recalls Saint Bernard, picking up a splendid lesson of Saint John: "We can love ourselves, because he was the first to love us" (1 Jn 4:19). "). "And since the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit that has been given to us (cf. Rom 8: 5), we love, because we are loved. And, by loving, we become entitled to greater love "5.
In this regard, Benedict XVI reminded us: "Whoever wants to give love must, in turn, receive it as a gift. It is true-as the Lord tells us-that man can become a source from which rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7, 37-38). However, in order to become such a source, he himself must always drink again from the primary and original source that is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God "(DCE 7). "He has loved us first and continues to love us first; Therefore, we can also correspond with love. God does not impose a feeling that we can not arouse in ourselves. He loves us and makes us see and experience his love, and from this 'before' of God love can also be born in response "(DCE 17).
It is significant that, until recently, most of the exegetes and translators of the Bible have translated that verse from the first letter of St. John (cf 4:19), in a merely exhortative sense: "Let us love ourselves". On the other hand, and fortunately, there are more and more people who prefer to use the indicative present -mama-, believing that it is not a simple exhortation, but rather a verification and a fact. We love, we can love - the Father and the brothers - because God loved us first: because we are loved and the Spirit of Jesus enables us for that new and original love, which he has converted into his commandment. (The Greek verb agapomen is present as indicative, the same as the Latin verb diligimus, it is not a simple exhortation to love, but the firm realization that we love precisely because we are loved, that is, because God loves us) .
