Seedbed's Daily Text delivered to your inbox each morning. This May Be the Most Important Question I Will Ever Ask You LISTEN NOW April 9, 2021 Philippians 1:7-8 It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. CONSIDER THIS Paul not only loved the Philippians, he liked them. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. It’s been close to twenty years ago—I remember the day. I was pastoring the leaders of the biggest event I had ever been a part of (before or since). We gathered the evening before the event began for a time of consecration. As each of the leaders came forward and two or three of us would lay hands on them and pray prayers of blessing and consecration as they knelt to offer themselves for the Lord’s service. As the time came to a close, one of the men who had been helping with this work caught my eye. He approached and asked if he could pray for me. As he prayed he broke pace with his words and moved into a kind of prophesying, as though he were speaking words straight from the heart of God into my deepest self. I will never forget those words. He said, “John David, you know I love you, but I need you to know that I don’t just love you. I like you. I want you to know that I like you.” That moment changed me. It was an awakening to the affection of God—not for the world—but for me. I have carried those words with me ever since. It changed the way I understood the nature of the love of God. They also changed the way I understood the nature of loving other people. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus. So many people understand the love of God as a kind of divine tolerance for them. As a result, the world often understands the love of the church and its members as the selfsame kind of tolerance (or not) for them. Then, by the grace of God, a follower of Jesus comes along and gets close enough to you to see you. They don’t see you through the lenses of either their own brokenness or their idealism (which are often two sides of the same coin). They have a mysterious capacity to see you like God sees you. Their love takes the form of a deep like. They don’t love you in spite of your brokenness or because of it. They like you just because of you. These are the ones who know the aff ection of Christ Jesus for themselves. These are the ones who are learning to trust this aff ection so much so that they have learned to like themselves. And these are the ones who cause us to dare to believe something diff erent about God and about ourselves. I’m going to tell you now what I believe may be the deepest, perhaps the hardest (and as a consequence, most neglected) truth of the gospel. We tend to believe our love for others originates from God’s love for us, and it does—just not how we think. Our love for others will never exceed our love for ourselves and our love for ourselves will never exceed our awareness and experience of God’s love for us. No one knew this better than Jesus, who put , this way: “And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'” (Matt. 22:39). It’s why, in John’s gospel, Jesus brings the entire gospel down to a single command: “Love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12). We must know, beyond knowledge, God’s love for us. In other words, you’ve got to know God likes you. This is the whole point of Jesus. It may be the most important question I will ever ask you: Do you know Jesus likes you? As we go along we will see just how deeply Paul understood this. His affection for others flowed like a river from his affection for himself, which flowed like a river from his experience of Jesus’ affection for him. That’s the mystery and the miracle of the gospel. We can settle for no less ourselves. THE PRAYER Abba Father, we thank you for your son, Jesus, who likes us as much as he loves us. Fill us with this knowledge beyond mere acceptance of it. Make it our lives. We must know this, Lord. Come, Holy Spirit, and awaken us to this love in a way that all that holds us back can be pushed aside. We pray in Jesus’ name, amen. THE QUESTIONS How do you relate to this idea of being liked by God and how that clarifies the nature of God’s love for you? Do you like yourself? Why or why not? How is it that we can put all the focus on loving our neighbor and none of the focus on loving ourselves when Jesus so directly connects the two? For the Awakening, J.D. Walt Sower-in-Chief seedbed.com The post This May Be the Most Important Question I Will Ever Ask You appeared first on Seedbed. Share Tweet Forward Copyright © 2021 Seedbed, All rights reserved You signed up to receive Daily Text posts via email at dailytext.seedbed.com.  Our mailing address is:  Seedbed 415 Bridge St. Franklin, TN 37064 Add us to your address book J D Walt J.D. Walt serves as the Sower-in-Chief for Seedbed whose sole ambition is to sow for a great awakening, by developing theological and ministry training resources for the local church. A sought after speaker and conference leader, a published author and songwriter, J.D. is also the voice of Seedbed's Daily Text. He hails from Dumas, Arkansas and currently resides in Franklin, Tennessee with his family .Want to buy J D Walt's Books on Alibris? Want to change how you receive these emails? 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