{"id":643,"date":"2018-09-24T03:19:53","date_gmt":"2018-09-24T03:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?p=643"},"modified":"2018-09-24T12:27:37","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T12:27:37","slug":"god-still-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/god-still-love.html","title":{"rendered":"Does God Still Love Me? (10 Steps to Freedom Week 3 Day 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"unsplash-logoCristian
Cristian Newman<\/span><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The following is a devotion from my message series\u00a010 Steps to Freedom<\/a>. I hope these devotionals help you experience lasting freedom in Jesus!<\/em><\/p>\n

STEP THREE: day 1<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Cultivate a relationship with your Heavenly <\/i>Father<\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Does God still love me?<\/i> That\u2019s a question that has haunted you for far too long. You may know what the Bible teaches and you know you\u2019ve asked for forgiveness for your many mistakes, but you\u2019re not sure if God really loves you anymore. Maybe He does love you, but you think He\u2019s definitely disappointed in you. And it\u2019s easy to see why: you\u2019re disappointed in yourself. You\u2019ve messed up too many times, you\u2019ve made too many mistakes, you\u2019ve hurt too many people, you\u2019ve broken too many promises. Promises to God, promises to others, promises to yourself. When you think of what God sees when He looks at you, your first instinct is to imagine God looking at you the way you look at yourself. And if you\u2019ve been in the battle with addiction long enough, when you look at yourself you see defeat, you see disgrace, you see disappointment.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the greatest transformations you have to walk through to truly experience lasting freedom is your relationship with God, namely your interaction with Him as your Heavenly Father. For too many Christians, we assume that God is angry or at least disappointed with us because of our many sins, causing us to instinctively avoid Him because we fear His wrath. <\/span><\/p>\n

The truth of how God sees you is profound, life-altering, and the third step to your freedom. Does God still love me?<\/i> When the answer to that question jumps from the pages of Scriptures and settles into the deepest part of your soul, you will experience a joy and a freedom that can only come as you cultivate a relationship with your Heavenly Father.<\/span><\/p>\n

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION<\/span><\/p>\n

1. When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see? If you were honest, would you say that you see defeat, disgrace or disappointment?<\/span><\/p>\n

2. What are some things you have experienced that have caused you to doubt God\u2019s love for you in the past?<\/p>\n

You can read other devotional entries\u00a0for 10 Steps to Freedom\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is a devotion from my message series\u00a010 Steps to Freedom. I hope these devotionals help you experience lasting freedom in Jesus! STEP THREE: day 1 Cultivate a relationship with your Heavenly Father Does God still love me? That\u2019s a question that has haunted you for far too long. You may know what the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[316],"tags":[332,318,27,333,61],"class_list":["post-643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10-steps-to-freedom","tag-anger","tag-freedom","tag-god","tag-judgement","tag-love"],"yoast_head":"\nDoes God Still Love Me? (10 Steps to Freedom Week 3 Day 1) - Next Steps<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You\u2019ve messed up too many times, made too many mistakes, hurt too many people, broken too many promises. Does God still love you?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does God Still Love Me? (10 Steps to Freedom Week 3 Day 1) - Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You\u2019ve messed up too many times, made too many mistakes, hurt too many people, broken too many promises. Does God still love you?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/god-still-love.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Next Steps\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-09-24T03:19:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-09-24T12:27:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/09\/cristian-newman-141895-unsplash-300x200.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Josh Daffern\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@joshdaffern\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Does God Still Love Me? (10 Steps to Freedom Week 3 Day 1) - Next Steps","description":"You\u2019ve messed up too many times, made too many mistakes, hurt too many people, broken too many promises. Does God still love you?","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Does God Still Love Me? (10 Steps to Freedom Week 3 Day 1) - Next Steps","og_description":"You\u2019ve messed up too many times, made too many mistakes, hurt too many people, broken too many promises. Does God still love you?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/god-still-love.html","og_site_name":"Next Steps","article_author":"facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","article_published_time":"2018-09-24T03:19:53+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-09-24T12:27:37+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/09\/cristian-newman-141895-unsplash-300x200.jpg"}],"author":"Josh Daffern","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@joshdaffern","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/god-still-love.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/god-still-love.html","name":"Does God Still Love Me? (10 Steps to Freedom Week 3 Day 1) - Next Steps","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/god-still-love.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/god-still-love.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/09\/cristian-newman-141895-unsplash-300x200.jpg","datePublished":"2018-09-24T03:19:53+00:00","dateModified":"2018-09-24T12:27:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c"},"description":"You\u2019ve messed up too many times, made too many mistakes, hurt too many people, broken too many promises. Does God still love you?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/god-still-love.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/god-still-love.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/god-still-love.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/09\/cristian-newman-141895-unsplash-300x200.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/files\/2018\/09\/cristian-newman-141895-unsplash-300x200.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/2018\/09\/god-still-love.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Does God Still Love Me? (10 Steps to Freedom Week 3 Day 1)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/","name":"Next Steps","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Josh Daffern","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/#\/schema\/person\/8ac2e15479ad6a320d2082837203cb7c","name":"Josh Daffern","description":"Born and raised in California, Josh graduated college from California Baptist University and spent two years as a missionary in Africa before coming back to America and finding the love of his life (Robin). Josh graduated from New Orleans Seminary with a Masters of Divinity and a Doctor of Ministry. Josh has been involved in full-time ministry for over twenty years. He enjoys hiking, beach volleyball, reading, playing anything competitive, and rough-housing with his kids. Josh, his gorgeous wife Robin, his outrageously handsome boys Zeke, Shepherd and Lincoln and his princess Elle, live in northern Virginia. Josh also blogs on Patheos as New Wineskins: an Apologist for the Modern Church and you can find links to all his content on joshdaffern.com. Enjoy the blog!","sameAs":["http:\/\/joshdaffern.com","facebook.com\/drjoshdaffern","https:\/\/x.com\/joshdaffern"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/author\/jdaffern"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":647,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643\/revisions\/647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/nextsteps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}