Breaking Barriers: Overcoming Obstacles to Receiving God ’ s Love

1. Breaking Barriers: Overcoming Obstacles to Receiving God’s Love

2. God’s Love for Us Our Love for God and Others Inflow Outflow “We love God because God first loved us”-- I John 4:19

3. God’s Love for Us Our Love for God and Others Inflow Outflow “We love God because God first loved us.” -- I John 4:19

4. The Drenching Rain of the Father “The love of the Father is like a sudden rain shower that will pour forth when you least expect it…When this happens do not put up an umbrella to protect yourself but rather stand in the drenching rain of the Father.” --Richard Foster

5. Examples of Mis-hearing

6. Samaritan Woman “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. ) .” John 4:9

7. Mixed Crowd “Father, glorify your name!" Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again. The crowd that was there and heard it said it had thundered; others said an angel had spoken to him. ” John 12: 28-29

8. Walls of Protection

9. “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be rung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even to an animal...”--C.S.Lewis

10. “I Am A Rock”(Paul Simon)

11. I build walls. A fortress deep and mighty that none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain, it laughter and it’s loving I disdain. I am a rock, I am an island…

12. Don’t talk of Love, I’ve heard the word before. There sleeping in my memory. I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never loved I never would have cried. I am a rock, I am an island.

13. I have my books and my poetry to protect me. I am shielded in my armor. Hiding in my room, safe within my womb. I touch no one and no one touches me.

14. And a rock feels no pain. And an island never cries...

15. Walls often consist of… • Bitterness and Unforgiveness • Vows and Judgments

16. Disappointments with God

17. Disappointments with God • When something unexpected happens to us • When obedience results in tribulation

18. Moses’ Disappointment with God • “Moses returned to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord, why have you brought trouble upon this people? Is this why you sent me? Ever since I went to Pharoah to speak in your name, he has brought trouble upon this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”(Exodus 5:22-23; cf. Numbers 11:10-15)

19. Similar experiences in Ministry “Have we not all had experiences of a like kind? We have felt the unmistakable urge of the Spirit to some new form of service, or to some special line of action, and have obediently pressed forward, confident that the inward urge itself was the guarantee of immediate success.

20. Then instead of success, opposition and disappointment and seeming failure have stunned us into bewildered despair, until we have ever been ready to fling the charge of unfaithfulness in the face of God.” —J. Sidlow Baxter

21. Disappointments with God • When something unexpected happens to us • When obedience results in tribulation • When something unfortunate happens to someone we love

22. Disappointments with God… • Damage our trust receptors • Create anger towards God • Expose our idols Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

23. Shattering Our Idols • “My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast.”—C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

24. “Love often succumbs to a cold death on the sharp rocks of disappointment” --Dan Allender

25. Bring Your Disappointments with God to the Cross! • “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!”

26. “My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?” • “If Jesus in all his perfection had the audacity to ask his Father, ‘Why?’ we can express to God all our whys, since the Why of the Son of Man embraced ours. None of our whys can be excluded from his, because all of our whys are healed through his.”—Pierre Wolff

27. Bring Your Disappointments with God to the Cross! • Bring your hurt, your anger, to the foot of the cross. • Ask Jesus to touch you with his nail-scarred hands! “By his wounds we are healed”

28. Lies that We’re Not Lovable

29. Samaritan Woman “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. ) .” John 4:9

30. “The greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self-rejection...Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the ‘Beloved.’” --Henri Nouwen

31. Our Own Failures and Sins

32. Not Like Real Children “Some of us keep living like maids and butlers instead of like real children. Working frantically to earn the right to stay, we never really settle in, kick back and enjoy our Father’s company. In effect, we live in the crummy, cramped quarters over the garage rather than in the magnifi-cent main house”—Sandra Wilson

33. There’s a world of difference in knowing we’re the forgiven and knowing we’re the beloved. --Sandra Wilson

34. Messages We’ve Received from Others

35. A complete waste of life… • “I grew up in a very broken and destructive home….My mother used to call me all sorts of names. I recall one of her favorite ones being bastard and when she wasn’t calling me that she was telling me to go to hell. I never understood what I had done to make my mother hate me so much. I certainly couldn’t be lovable. She wouldn’t have done all those things if I were capable of being loved. I saw myself as a complete waste of life.”

36. Words that are Spoken Over Us… • . I have a brother who is eight years older than I am. When I was 17 years old… I had started college, but quickly got overwhelmed and quit. He was angry and disappointed with me for quitting. He said, “Carol, if you quit school no one will ever want you. The best that you could hope for is to marry well. You will have nothing of value to offer anyone.

37. Words spoken over us • You’ll be lucky if you can attract a mechanic!” I cannot tell you how it happened, but I took on such a spirit of unworthiness and shame. My brother never apologized and on the outside I just went on like nothing had ever happened. But, inside it was a different story. I spent 25 years getting cozy with that wound. It caused such insecurities to sprout.

38. Descending into Hell… “Children descend into hell when love is squeezed out of them by parental neglect.” —Frank Lake

39. Our Fear of Letting God Love Us

40. What We Fear Most What we humans fear more than anything else is not the evil all around us, nor even the evil inside us. What we fear most is the good in ourselves. It is so demanding we repress it. William Sloane Coffin

41. Can you believe the truth about yourself, no matter how beautiful it is?

42. The God Who Sings Over You “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” --Zephaniah 3:17

43. “The only thing that makes life livable is enjoying the joy that comes from knowing one is enjoyed by God.” --Sam Storms

44. You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased