May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love.— Ephesians 3:17
Each one of us is born with a "love tank," and if our tank is empty, we are in trouble. We need to start receiving love from the moment we are born and continue receiving it—and giving it out—until the day we die. Sometimes Satan manages to arrange things so that instead of receiving love, we receive abuse. If that abuse continues, we become love starved and warped, so that we are unable to maintain healthy relationships.
Many people develop addictive behaviors of different types. If they can't get good feelings from within themselves, they look for them on the outside. One of the things we must understand is that people have to have a certain number of good feelings. We are all created to have good feelings about ourselves. We cannot go around hurting, being wounded, and feeling bad all the time. We are just not designed and equipped to live that way.
To find those good feelings, many people turn to sex, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, food, money, power, gambling, work, television, sports, and many other addictive things. They are simply trying to get those good feelings they are missing from within themselves and their relationships.
The good news is that whatever may have happened to us in the past, whatever we may have been deprived of, we can get it from the Lord. He is our Shepherd, so we shall not want (See Psalm 23:1). He has promised not to withhold any good thing from us (Psalm 84:11).
If we did not get enough love when we were growing up, or if we are not getting enough love now, we don't have to go through the rest of our lives with an empty "love tank." Even if there is not one other human being on this earth who loves us, we are still loved by God, and we can become rooted and grounded in His love.
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