Fully Known And Deeply Loved

"To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and deeply loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretence, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us".

-Timothy J. Keller

There are many times in life where we might feel unneeded, unloved and worthless. I mean, honestly, whether it's a fleeting moment or something more substantial if we are being serious with ourselves, we all have times where we think or are told we aren't good enough. These thoughts come from fear, fear tells you that if you were fully known, you would not be deeply loved. We become so fixated on image maintenance that we forget to bear the image of God. Instead of being confident in who God created us to be, we compensate and take our worth from the world.

We struggle to feel love, but we are already loved by a God who took that struggle away. He chased us down and sought us out in order to tell us how deeply we are loved. In John chapter 4 we hear the story of the Samaritan Woman- feel free to read it for yourself.

John 4:1-30

This passage highlights how God is pursuing our hearts and highlights many areas of Jesus' character. This woman acted surprised when Jesus sat with her and engaged, this wasn't the 'done' thing in that time. Jesus was breaking at least three social/cultural norms or barriers when he did this.

1. He spoke to a woman. Traditionally, Jewish men were not seen to speak to women.

2. He spoke to a Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans were not pals so, again this was very frowned upon.

3.He spoke to a woman knowing her full situation. The samaritan woman was living with a man to whom she was not married, this was hugely frowned upon in those days and so would have meant she was outcast from society.

The last point also tells us about the loving God we have. The Samaritan woman had had five husbands, five. In those times women were not allowed to initiate divorce, this means that the woman had been rejected by each of those husbands. No wonder her self-worth and confidence feels so low and probably couldn't have been any lower. How could she feel like any one could love her if she had been rejected so much?

"Jesus doesn't ask us to meet his standards, he comes to where we are and meets us in our brokenness".

Instead, Jesus broke the cultural stereotype, he came alongside her and showed her love and compassion, when she felt rejected and worthless. He looked beneath the surface and into the woman's heart. He replaced brokenness with love, he met her where she was in order to show her how deeply she was loved. Jesus doesn't ask us to meet his standards, he comes to where we are and meets us in our brokenness.

When Jesus came alongside her she left behind her vessel which she tried to fill so many times, yet failed to satisfy and became a vessel herself. By going into the town to tell people about the God who knew her intimately, yet loved her deeply. Her identity shifted, her worth shifted. She put her life into the one who gives her life and carried living water into the world.

When our worth is not rooted in God and what he says about us, Satan gives us a distorted view of facts he gives us a warped view of how we see each other, God and our value. But we walk by faith and not by sight knowing that we are created on purpose, for a purpose, fully known and yet deeply and unconditionally loved.

Our purpose comes from the Lord, my worth is in the Lord who knows me, just as it is said in Psalm 139, and yet he loves me deeply. Fully Known and Deeply Loved.