Now that we have a better understanding of our Heavenly Father – His beautiful nature and His unending love for us now we need to start to understand our identity.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10

We are sons and daughters of the King, we are the people of God and we need to begin to learn to love ourselves the way God loves us and see ourselves with our Fathers eyes.

There are so many of us who struggle with insecurity. We find it hard to love ourselves which then makes it hard for us to love others and hard for us to receive love from others. The answer to our insecurities is simple. We must learn to love ourselves as much as our Heavenly Father loves us.

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:10-12

He loved us first. Before we even knew Him, He was pursuing us, drawing near to us, watching and waiting for us to turn our face to Him. He loves us so much that He sent His beloved Son for us. This love is powerful.

If we are going to love ourselves as much as God loves us, then we must encounter His love for us. When we experience Gods powerful love for us, it gives us the ability to love ourselves. How do we experience and encounter His powerful love?

 The prayer of Apostle Paul can help us…

A Prayer for the Ephesians

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Ephesians 3:14-19

It takes power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of God for us and it takes power to know this love. The Holy Spirit is the person to give us that power. We need to ask Him to give us that power in our inner being to know, experience and encounter His love.

The bible tells us this…

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. 1 John 5:14-15

Whatever we ask, He hears us, and we know that we will have what we have asked for. He is just waiting for us to ask Him to reveal His love to us. The bible is full of verses of His powerful love for us, but I believe He wants to show us first hand what that love feels like. And as we begin to feel His love for us we will then begin to feel worthy, accepted, loved unconditionally, powerful and free. Free to love ourselves the way that our Heavenly Father loves us.