¹⁶I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, ¹⁸may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, ¹⁹and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. -Ephesians 3:16-17

            I often struggle with that Fact that Jesus Christ, the God and Savior of the world loves me. Yes, I can see how he might love Billy Graham, Mother Thresa, David Ring, and etc. But me? I can be unlovable yet his Word says he never stops loving me. That makes me want to seek him so much more. It also teaches me to love those around me when there at their worst. If a person would live loved there’s nothing that would stop them from being who God has made them to be, no matter what their circumstances are. The first step is to truly grasp that Jesus loves you. It’s not how much time you spend praying, how long you study your Bible, or if you go to church that make him love you more or less. I pray, read scripture, and go to church because He loves me and I love Him. He loves you and me and proved that by going to the cross for our sins. Every wrong thing I did or will do was place upon him so I can be free to have an everlasting relationship with him forever. One that starts on this side of heaven and will carry me to that great day when I seeing him face to face.  I been praying that God would help me realize how much he loves me because I want to lived loved. I want the joy in my heart to be able to be seen on my face, so people might be better for knowing me, and would know Christ is the TRUTH. I have to fight everyday to grasp His love, because of my upbringing and past I can be negative, but God has taught me as long as I focus on him my head is lifted up and he’ll help me face anything. The one thing that effects me from feeling loved is  how satan as used an event in my life from my past to get me to doubt God. When I was seventeen, I was raped by a friend of mine and it tore me apart. To this day I fight the feeling that says I’m not a real man or worth anything. I wasn’t a Christian when this happen so I turned to porn to prove I was straight and was a man. I was filled with depression, anger, and darkness. I was a virgin when I got married but the rape and the trappings of porn made me feel tainted. But it is only by the the Love of Christ that I been set free from that hurt and pain. His love is what keeps me from falling to despair and keeping the old me from coming back. When I feel the old me coming back or those temptations rise, I run to him for strength. I guess the reason I have decided to go public with my rape and the issue with porn, is because I want others to find the healing that is in Jesus Christ.He took the broken pieces of my life and made me whole.In fact, He made me a new creation. And I want people  to know that God doesn’t waste one ounce of pain or a single tear drop. He has use the hurts in my life to help me to minister to others.Here’s a few verses that I run to for strength:

¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

- 2Corinthians 5:17

    With Christ I got a clean slate and a new outlook on life. I’m a child of God and there nothing that will take that way.

³¹What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³²He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶As it is written:
   ”For your sake we face death all day long;
      we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.-Romans 8:31-39

        And when it comes to the comfort I get from God,and how he uses us to bring others comfort read this:

³Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.-2 Corinthians 1:3-4

         I’m far from having perfect understanding about living loved, but with God’s help I’m getting closer to living out my life knowing that I’m loved by God. I pray your blessed by reading this and I want you to know your not alone. Whatever your going through, Jesus cares for you. Trust Him.