I would say I have times when I experience God's love. It is not only "for" me, though. There is correction. Hebrews 12:4-14 is very clear how if God loves us, He is deeply correcting our character so we become like and love like Jesus. And this is commanded . . . as a basic of our Christian experience >
"And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma." (Ephesians 5:2)
So His love does this with us.
So, it's not just feeling loved.
And yes Jesus has claimed in prayer how our Father loves us as He loves His own Son Jesus > John 17:23. And now Jesus Himself is praying for us . . . according to His own faith > Romans 8:34 > so I would say this means that now Jesus continues to pray for our Father to love us as He has loved Jesus.
"Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." (Romans 5:5)
So, yes God is this personal with His own children. And we do experience Him loving us. And yes you do feel Him; I believe we feel what He is feeling, even, in His love being shared with us. But it is not only about feelings, as ones do make a point of saying. But God is alive and feeling; there is pleasantness of rest in this love; we do enjoy and feel and experience this.
"you will find rest for your souls," Jesus says in Matthew 11:28-30. We feel the difference between His peace with kind and gentle joy, versus what we feel in worry and unforgiveness and lusts for very inferior pleasures.
In His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus starts right off with how to be blessed in God's love >
poor in spirit
merciful
meek
pure in heart
These are how we are because of how God's love cures our character . . . so we stay this way and grow this way, and do not only feel this way.
And I would offer some more >
"rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." (1 Peter 3:4)
God experiences how He feels about us. And He is very pleased with us being gentle and quiet in His love. So, not only do we appreciate feeling loved by God, but we appreciate being pleasing to Him by being gentle and quiet in His love.
And we might note > this love is gentle and quiet, then. God is quiet, not silent. So, we need to put away all the noisy and nasty stuff of worldly emotions and worldly ways of loving and relating > so we may become God's way in love and how His love has us relating as His family >
"Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you." (Ephesians 4:31-32)
His love is almighty to clear us and to keep us clear from bitterness and wrath and clamor and evil speaking and malice . . . and worry and fear and boredom and loneliness. Because God is almighty, in His love in us. Jesus is the Lord of all, almighty to rule us in His peace in us.
In my case,
"clamor" can mean noisy stuff in my head, keeping my attention to only what happens or could happen to me or to certain people who are my favorites. Instead, I need to care about others as myself, in prayer, including caring for enemies . . . and imagined enemies, I suppose I should say. My attention needs to be to God in quietness and with kindness for any and all people. So, thank You, God, for Your word meaning this for us ! ! !
And
"evil speaking" can mean how in my mind I can be thinking paranoid things against others, versus praying with love and blessing for them.
And yes worry can speak very evil and cruel and anti-love things in a person's mind and heart.
So, by getting rid of these horrible things, and not trusting what they are saying and not obeying what they would have us doing, we can be quiet with God in His love's
"gentle and quiet spirit". And in this love discover how He communicates with us > He shares His own creativity with us, of His all-loving love, so we discover how He has us loving any and all people as ourselves.
And in case we have failed in living these basic things of God's word, be encouraged how Jesus Himself is now praying for us > Romans 8:34. So, we have Jesus claiming in prayer how God will change us to live and to love the way His word means. And so, may we join Him in this praying for all that is possible with God and indeed so better than we have been busy thinking about
> and help one another so that we >
"speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the Head---Christ---" (Ephesians 4:15)
