Do You Understand the Lord?

Over the course of my life I’ve heard this phrase used often and in many different ways: “Do you understand me?” There’s the plaintiff cry of a child who is trying to tell you something. They’re hoping you get it. There’s the exchange between people of different countries as they try to “talk” to one another. There’s the conversation between husband and wife – sometimes friendly, sometimes fret...ful, or sometimes angry. Then there’s the discussion between a manager and his assistants. It can be a put down or a humiliation depending on the manager and his or her attitude.

Funny how those words come across as many different feelings, depending on the inflection of the voice and the facial expressions brought along with it. A person who is kind and generous will ask the question with care and concern while a person who is arrogant and rude will be demanding and surly. Our responses to those different articulations show us how much we know about the person speaking. If we’ve been raised with many demands we are bound to cringe and avoid the speaker. If we’ve been given much love and mercy the response is completely different.

If God were here right now and He asked you “Do you understand me?” how would you feel? Would you cringe in fear that He was reprimanding you? Would you want to retreat a safe distance and fill your mind with other things so you can’t hear Him? Or would you respond as a child who trusts their father?

How we feel about God, for better or worse, is how we respond to Him. What we feel is what we think we already know about Him. We may see God as a harsh demanding father. Or we may know Him as a loving, forgiving, merciful caring daddy.

Do you understand the Lord? Can you wrap your mind around the fact that He loves you? Can you hear His voice and remember His nature? It’s so important to wash out the world’s system of thinking by bathing in the beauty of God’s Word. His nature and His attitude toward us is God breathed throughout the Bible. As you read about His dealings with the children of men you will know so much more about Him, so that when He asks you if you understand Him you will know that He’s asking in love.
Without knowing God’s nature intimately, we will respond to Him in the flesh. And we will be battling our feelings and hiding from God and refusing the full and limitless Grace of Christ. There are many wonderful things about God we need to know so that we will be complete in Him.

Oh beloved, listen to God calling you. He hugs you up tightly and whispers His love Words into your heart as He seeks to make Himself understood by you. It doesn’t matter who else has spoken harshly to you in the past. It doesn’t matter the harsh circumstances you find yourself in. The Holy Spirit is not a critical spirit. The only thing that held Christ to the cross was love. God will always speak to you in love, even when He’s correcting you. He will always call you in love, lead you in love and protect you in love. His love never fails – that means there’s never a time, not a single moment, when God won’t love you.

Open up His love songs to you this morning, before the world has opportunity to make you feel small, keep you entrapped and call you unworthy. The loving heart of God speaks over you this morning and calls you beloved, victorious, precious, called, redeemed, renamed, appointed and anointed. God loves you and He’s for you and everything He says and does is wrapped in those absolute truths.

Ephesians 2:4-5 But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

Psalm 86:15 But You, O Lord, are a God of compassion and mercy, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.

Romans 5:5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.

Romans 8:39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2 Thessalonians 3:5 May the Lord lead your hearts into a full understanding and expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ.