Rick Warren - You Were Created to Be Loved by God

0:00Now to understand your life purpose and understand your life calling, you have to begin with God because God created you and you can't tell yourself what your purpose is, only your creator can tell you what your purpose is. And your purpose, your calling in life, actually begins in the nature of God. Now the Bible tells us that God is love. We have talked about this so many times. That God doesn't have love, God doesn't just show love, God is love. Love is the nature, the character, the essence of God. There would be no love in the universe if it weren't for the fact that God is love. The only reason you're able to love, the only reason you're able to give it and receive love is because God, who is the God of love, made you in his image. Ants can't love, snails can't love, cows can't love, but human beings love because we're made in the image of God.

1:02Now the Bible says that everything in the universe was created so God could love it. God has never made anything he doesn't love. He loves every rock, every tree, every plant, every animal, every human being. God has never made anything he doesn't love. So if you're alive, it means God loves you. And you were created as an object of God's love. The Bible says this in Ephesians chapter one, they're on your outline. Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us. Whoa, somebody to stop right there. Before God even created the universe, he had already chosen you and loved you. He made the universe so he could make earth, so he could make the human race, so he could make you, so he could love you. If God hadn't wanted to love you, all the other stuff wouldn't have happened. It says before he made the world, God loved us

2:03and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been from the very beginning of time to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him, this plan to have a family. God wanted a family and he wanted you to be a part of it. And the reason the universe exists is because God wanted a family. It was all made so we could be made, so we could be loved. And he says, and this plan gave him, read it with me, great pleasure, circle that, great pleasure. Now, when you remember when you read Purpose of In Life, the Bible says you are planned for God's pleasure. And the reason you're alive is that God made you to love you. Now, that's all background. We all know that. In this series, when we look at the five callings of God, and the word calling is used far more than Purpose

3:05in the Bible, when we look at God's calling on your life, we're talking about God's assignment, God's purpose for your life, God's reasons for creating you. I want you to write this down. The first purpose of my life is to be loved by God. The first purpose of my life, the first reason you were created is to be loved by God. God made you to love you. Now, let that sink in a little bit. The first purpose of your life is not to serve God. The first purpose of your life is not to trust God. The first purpose of your life is not to obey God. The first purpose of your life is not even to love God. No, no. The first purpose of your life is to let God love you. God didn't create you first in first place to do something. He created you in the first place to receive something. Now, if you understand this revolutionate truth,

4:05most of you have never really got this, it's gonna transform your life. That my number one purpose in life is not to do something for God. It's to receive something from God to get his love because I was made to be a receptacle, a receiver, a benefactor of God's love. Let that sink in. Let me say it again, because I don't want you to get this. Your first duty in life is not to do something. It's not to learn, it's not to listen. It's not to pray, it's not to give, it's not to sacrifice, it's not to serve, it's not all, those are all good things, but they're not the first thing God created you to do. He created you to accept, to receive his love, to just let God love you. That's the first purpose of life, to be loved by God. Now, this is taught all through the scripture. In the book of Jude, and I always like to mention these,

5:07these little books that nobody ever reads, the book of Jude is a very short book. It's only one chapter, 25 verses. It's the second to the last book in the Bible, right before Revelation. And I always like to mention these, because when you get to heaven, I don't want my people to be embarrassed in heaven. And when Jude comes up to you and says, Hey, how'd you like my book? I don't want to go, oh, Mr. Jude, I didn't even know you were in the Bible. No, when he walks up, I'm going to go, hey, Jude. Love your book. Love that book. We're really good. In fact, one of my favorites, because it was only 25 verses. You could memorize the book of Jude. Now, very short book, but a lot of profound truth in it. And in Jude chapter 1 verse 1, it says this, This letter is from Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ, and a brother of James. Now, I want to stop here. That friend is one of the most humble statements ever written.

6:11You say, why? He says, I'm a servant of Jesus Christ, and I'm a brother of James. He forgets to mention one thing. He's the half brother of Jesus. I was at way more, I'm going to. Jesus had brothers? Yes. Jesus had brothers and sisters. They're talked about in the Bible. When Mary gave birth to Jesus, she was a virgin. That was a miraculous birth because God was the father of Jesus Christ. But the Bible tells us that after Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph had many other children. They're mentioned in the Bible. One of them's named James, one of them's named Jude. He had Jesus had half sisters. And they often came to see him speak, heard him watch him do miracles. The interesting thing about Jesus' brothers and sisters, none of them became followers of Jesus until after Jesus died in the cross and then rose again from the dead. And when they saw him resurrector from the dead, it was like he's back.

7:13And that made a believe even his brothers and sisters. They go, he was who he claimed to be. They watched him die and they watched him come back to life. And it was only after that happened. They became followers of Jesus Christ. And Jude and James actually became leaders. I mean, now can you imagine how difficult it would be growing up with Jesus as your brother? But in Jude, it says this. This letter is from Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ. He said, if anybody could have been the ultimate name dropper, it would have been this guy. Okay, but he says, I'm just a servant of Jesus and a brother of James. Didn't even mention that thing. And I'm writing to all who are called to live in the love of God, the Father. Circle the word called. And what am I called to do? I'm called to live in the love of God, the love of God, the Father, and in the care of Jesus Christ. Now, if the first purpose of my life is to be loved by God,

8:14my first calling is this. I'm called to enjoy a relationship with God. Write that one down. My purpose is to let God love me. My calling is to enjoy a relationship with God. I'm called to live in the love of God. It's a relationship. What I'm saying to you, this is so fundamental, is that the number one calling in your life is not to a role, it's not to a responsibility, it's not to a bunch of rules, it's not to regulations, it's not to ritual, it's not to religion, it's to a relationship. Now, this is gonna surprise me. Christianity is not a religion. People try to make it a religion. They try to make it about rules and regulations and rituals, but it's not about it. Jesus said it's about a relationship. God sent Christ so you could have a relationship, not a religion, but a relationship to God

9:16because God is love and he wants you to learn to experience his love. Do you ever wonder if your life really matters or what on earth you're here for? Pastor Rick wants to let you know that God has a good plan and purpose for your life. In his best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life, he lays out a simple life-changing roadmap to help you discover and live it. This book has transformed millions of lives and it could transform someone you love. And great news, it's been updated for today's generation. This edition includes a video introduction and audio teaching from Pastor Rick for each chapter and two powerful bonus chapters on the biggest barriers to living a purpose driven life. As you go through this book, you'll uncover that your deepest meaning and fulfillment doesn't come from success or status, but from understanding and living out the purpose

10:18that God created you for. Request your copy today when you give a gift to help daily hope share the gospel around the world. It's our way of saying thanks. Now what kind of relationship does God want you to have with him? Does God want you to be his slave? No. Does God want you to be his servant? No. Does God want you to be his soldier and fight his battles for right and wrong and the world? No. Does God want you to be his warrior? No. Does God want you to be his worker? No. Does God want you to be his employee? No. Does God want you to be his minions? No. God wants you to be his son or his daughter. He wants you in his family. Here's what the Bible says, Romans chapter one. Dear friends and Rome, this is Paul writing, God loves you dearly. Circle that word dearly. God loves you dearly.

11:20And he has called you, there's that word. Here's the calling of God. He has called you to be his very own people. So here are the three fundamental truths of everything we're doing in this campaign. The first purpose is to be loved by God. That's my first purpose. My first calling is to enjoy a relationship with God. And number three, that relationship that God wants me to have is to be his son or daughter. The relationship God created you for is to be his son or his daughter. Now that is the most amazing truth you will ever hear in your life. That the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the creator of the universe, doesn't want you to be a slave servant soldier but his son and his daughter and his child. God wants a family to love and he wants you in it. Here's what the Bible says, first John chapter three, what an incredible quality of love.

12:24The Father has shown to us that we should be named and called and counted the children of God. And so we are. I love that in the amplified. We're named the children of God, we're called the children of God. We're counting the children of God because we are the children of God. This is your number one calling in life. Your number one purpose in life is not to accomplish something. Your number one purpose in life is not to make something of yourself. Your number one purpose in life is not to make a lot of money to be famous, to have a lot of fun, your number one purpose in life. God created you and called you to be loved by Him, to experience that love. And most people have never truly experienced the love of God. Oh, they've heard about it. Everybody here said, oh, God loves you. Yeah, yeah, I know, God loves me. The very fact that you're bored by that means you don't get it. Because if you got it, you would be so excited about it.

13:26You've never experienced it. You've heard it in your head, but you don't have it in your heart. And a lot of people are going to miss heaven by 18 inches because they got it here and they don't got it here. They don't have it here. You've got to experience God's love in your life. He says we're named and called and counted the children got it. Now why in the world would God do that in order to express His love? And God's love is extravagant. And God's love is lavish. And God's love is beyond comprehension. And as I've said so many times, He loves you on your good days and bad days. When you feel it and don't feel it, when you think you deserve it, when you don't think you deserve it, you can't make God stop loving you. God will never love you anymore than He does this second. God will never love you any less than He does this second. Because God's love is not based on who you are or what you do it's based on who He is.

14:27God is love. So I'll say it again because I want you to get it. Your number one calling in life is not to do something to impress God with what you do. Your number one calling in life is to receive something to let God love you. Now the Bible says this in Ephesians 3. I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust. In other words, that you get more and more comfortable with Jesus in your life. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. Your life needs to be rooted in the love of God. And He says, and may you have the power to understand as all of God's people should. How wide and how high along and how high and how deep His love

15:28really is. And may you experience the love of Christ. Not just know it, circle the word experience. God says, I want you to feel love. I don't want you to know your love. I want you to feel it. I want you to feel it in every fiber of your life. May you experience emotionally the love of Christ. Though it is so great, you'll never fully understand it. Now the Bible says that part of your calling is to understand how wide, long, high and deep God's love for you is. So let me explain it to you. Write this down. How wide is God's love? Well, write this down. It's wide enough to be everywhere. That's how wide it is. There is no place on this planet that God's love isn't. There's no place in the universe that God's love in. It's in the bar where a bunch of people are drunk. It's in the red light district where people are being sold

16:28and selling their bodies. It's in the barrio, the slum, the favela, the ghetto. It's in the place of the poorest of the poor. It's in every, there is no place where God's love is not. You say, well, I don't see it there. Well, that doesn't mean it's not there. There are a lot of things you can't see that are real, that are reality, you just can't see them. For instance, right now through this air wave, there are radio waves going through this air between me and you, actually these air waves, these radio waves are going through your body right now. And they carry music. And there are television waves right now going through the air that are carrying colored pictures. You can't see them and you can't hear them unless you have a receiver and you are tuned in. They're real, you just can't see them. We can't see God here right now. You don't see them, but he's here, he's real.

17:29And if you tune in, you'll experience it. If you get on God's wavelength, you will experience his love. You will know he is as real as I am standing here today, but you gotta tune in. And just because you can't feel him or see him right now, doesn't mean he's not there. You can't see those radio waves. There are a lot of stuff that you can't see. You can't see an atom, but everything in life is composed of atoms. So how wide is life? It's wide enough to be everywhere. That means there in your life, there will be no place you go where God is not. And although you may feel lonely and you may feel alone at different points in your life, you will never, ever, ever truly be alone. Because God's love is there, whether you are aware or not. It's wide enough to be everywhere. Number two, it's long. How long is God's love? It's long enough to last forever.

18:32Now that makes it different than human love, because human love wears out. And that's why we have divorces. And that's why we have breakups. That's why we have conflict. And that's why we have people estranged from each other that are not reconcile, because human love often wears out. But God's love never wears out. God will never, never, never, never, never, stop loving you. Even if you chose to reject him and go to hell, God will still love you. Because God's love is eternal. He made you to love you. God loves you with an everlasting love. It's long enough to last forever. How deep is God's love? It's deep enough to handle anything. Deep enough to handle any, no matter what pain you're going through, what problem you're going through or what hurt you're going through. God's love is deeper still. You say, man, I'm in the pits.

19:33I've hit bottom. I'm in the pit of hell right now. I'm in the pit of despair. I can't get any lower than I am. Well, let me tell you what, God's love goes deeper and lower than your problem. There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper. It is deeper than any problem you're going to have at hand, deep enough to handle anything. And how about heights? How high is God's love? Listen to this. It is high enough to overlook my sins, to overlook my faults, to overlook my mistakes. Because of Jesus Christ, God is able to overlook my faults, my failures, my flubs, my sin, my rebellion. And God offers forgiveness through the cross because of His love. And He offers you a fresh chance to start over. Now, one million years ago,

20:35before anything existed, God had already thought of you and decided to choose you and love you. And God has been waiting your entire life for this very moment, where He could get you to sit still for just a minute, and He could say this to you. You have no idea how much I love you. I have always loved you. There has never been a moment of your existence that I didn't love you. I was the one who planned your birth. I allowed that fertilization. I allowed that conception. I wanted you alive so I could love you. And I saw you formed in your mother's womb. I saw you take your first breath. I heard your first cry. There's been no moment of your life that I've turned my back from you, that I have not listened to you, that I have not watched you.

21:35I've saw every pain you go through, every sin you've ever done, the celebrations and the sadness, the happy times and the sad times, the grief, the pain, the exhilaration. I've been there at every moment of your life, and whether you realize that or not, I was gazing on you in love because I made you to love you. So here's the question. I wrote to you this on an email this week. How would your life change? How would your life be different? How would it be transformed if you began to be aware of God's unconditional, continuous and never ending love for you? How would your life change if when you got up in the morning, the first thing you felt was, I am deeply and unconditionally loved by God. And as you got out of bed, and you went to the take your shower, you'd think,

22:35I can sense God's love in my life. And how would it be? As you got ready and you ate your breakfast, you felt the love of God. And as you got in your car to go to work, you felt the love of God. And as you got to work, or you got to school, you felt the love of God. And when you came home and you went to a movie, or you watched some TV, or you worked out in your backyard, you was sensing God's love. What would it be like if you felt God's love, unconditionally, in your life, totally. And you were aware of it all the time. How would that change your life? [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hi, everybody. This is Pastor Rick. Because of the generous support of many of you, Daily Hope listeners, we're able to offer Daily Hope devotional for free, worldwide. In fact, today, I have a note from Paul in Kenya. That shows how God is at work through the Daily Hope devotional.

23:36Paul wrote me, he said, I'd like to sincerely thank you with the free gift of your Daily Hope devotional. May God receive all the glory. For some time now, you're inspiring and encouraging messages, along with scripture references, have helped me push through some really tough times and get closer to God. However, Paul writes, the best part is that my faith in God has now grown to the point that he recently gave me the strength and wisdom to accept his free undeserved gift of grace and salvation by accepting and confessing Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I feel like a new being, and I yearn to keep growing more and more in God's Word and in wisdom, surrendering my life to His will alone. So please hold my hand in this journey to the glory and honor of God, to Christ Jesus. Paul, without a doubt, I will hold your hand as you journey with Jesus. There is no greater decision

24:38that you could have made than believing and receiving Jesus Christ. So congratulations, you're my brother in Christ, and I want to encourage you to be on the lookout every day to see how God guides you, how God directs you. It's an exciting journey. And by the way, keep studying His Word every day. Get a Bible and read it every day. I'm so thankful that Daily Hope Devotionals helping you to do just that. Now, the Daily Hope Devotionals helping many, many people, just like Paul, all around the world to grow closer to God. And it's free. If you're not getting it, I want to encourage you to go to DailyHopeTV.com and sign up today. Do you ever wonder if your life really matters? Or what on earth you're here for? Pastor Rick wants to let you know

25:39that God has a good plan and purpose for your life. In His best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Life, He lays out a simple life-changing road map to help you discover and live it. This book has transformed millions of lives and it could transform someone you love. And great news. It's been updated for today's generation. This edition includes a video introduction and audio teaching from Pastor Rick for each chapter and two powerful bonus chapters on the biggest barriers to living a purpose-driven life. As you go through this book, you'll uncover that your deepest meaning and fulfillment doesn't come from success or status. But from understanding and living out the purpose that God created you for. Request your copy today when you give a gift to help DailyHope share the gospel around the world. It's our way of saying thanks.

26:54for titled An interactive story powdered God's Love in Excel