Love: An Anchor for Your Soul (Part 2)

In this episode of Lioness Women Rooted in Christ, I invite you to root your identity in the one place that will never fail you—the unwavering, covenantal love of God.

Together, we explore the difference between human love, which is often conditional and limited, and God’s love, which is eternal, secure, and not dependent on your performance. Through personal stories and Scripture, I remind you that you are not loved because of what you do, how well you perform, or how perfectly you show up—you are loved because it is God’s nature to love you.

We look at Matthew 3:17 and Zephaniah 3:17 to reveal a powerful truth: even Jesus received affirmation of belovedness before He began His ministry. That same affirmation is available to you. God delights in you, quiets you with His love, and rejoices over you with singing—right now, as you are.

This episode is an invitation for you to stop striving for love and begin living from it. As you anchor your identity in Christ, you’ll discover how deeply being rooted in God’s love changes the way you lead, speak, relate, and walk through your daily life—especially in moments of fear, insecurity, conflict, or pressure.

I also share simple language and spiritual practices to help you embody your belovedness so you can enter every room, conversation, and challenge knowing this truth:

You are the beloved.
 You are a daughter of the King.
 You are deeply, fully, and eternally loved.

This episode is for you if you’re ready to rest, lead, and love from a place of deep security in Christ—and allow that love to transform everything.

Join me for the New Year's Roar Workshop on January 15, 2026 (12pm ET, 11am CT, 10am MT, 9am PT).  Register here:
https://www.jenportercoach.com/NewYearsRoar2026

Scriptures referenced:
Matthew 3:17 – "This is my Son, whom I love. With Him I am well pleased." God publicly affirms Jesus as His beloved Son, declaring delight in Him before Jesus begins His ministry, showing that God's pleasure in us isn't based on performance.

Zephaniah 3:17 – One of my favorite verses: "The Lord your God... will take great delight in you; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing." Imagine God singing over us with joy, even as we sleep!

Creators and Guests

Host

Jen Porter

Jen Porter is a faith-centered coach and podcast host who empowers women to live boldly from their identity in Christ, rooted in truth, courage, and holy confidence.

What is Lioness Women: Rooted in Christ?

Welcome to Lioness Women, a space for faith-fueled women to connect with their purpose and amplify their voices. These Lioness Conversations highlight purpose-driven women who share how their faith in Christ shapes their leadership, courage, and calling. 🦁

Hosted by Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach, this podcast shines a light on women who are leading with wisdom, strength, and grace — in boardrooms, businesses, ministries, and movements around the world.

Through raw, inspiring conversations, we explore how women of faith are building legacies, overcoming fear, and transforming their industries with bold vision and unshakable belief. If you’re ready to rise higher, lead with purpose, and stay rooted in Christ — this is your community.

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Jen Porter (00:00)
Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Lioness Women Rooted in Christ. Today is part two of belovedness. We're focusing on love this week and I want you to know just how beloved you are. You know, we are so, so, so loved. It's the kind of love that can't even be measured. It's the kind of love that is eternal. It is ever-present.

It never leaves us. It's always there. No matter what we do, we are perfectly, deeply, profoundly loved. And I know that if we even caught a part of that, we would live differently. We would wake up differently. We would move through our day differently. We would walk and hold ourselves differently. We would speak differently.

And so my desire for all of us is that we grab hold of just how beloved we are. I wanna start with a story. When I was dating in my 30s, I guess it was, I had been married, it was not a great marriage, I was not loved in that marriage, and I've done a lot of work to heal from that. But when I was dating and opening myself back up to love again,

and it was quite scary. I would ask the men that I would go on a date with, who has loved you better than anybody else in the world? And it was a question that brought up a lot. It told me a lot about how they receive love and who were the most important people in their lives. And a lot of answers that I got were like, you my grandmother loved me better than anybody.

And it was just such an interesting question to get to know somebody. I ask you that, who has loved you in your life better than anybody? Who has made you feel more deeply loved than anybody else? And for me, it is God. There's certainly people who have loved me so, well. My husband loves me so well. I'm happily married. Praise be to God.

for my husband who is a good, good man. And I feel loved by him every single day. And yet, human love is very different than God's love for us. And so I wanna differentiate between those things today. When we talk about love from a worldly perspective, from a human perspective, it is limited.

The love that we have to offer by ourselves to other people is limited, it's conditional, it is...

changing. You know, it can, you we can be completely in love with someone for a season and fall out of love and treat that person differently. So the world's love is not something that we can build our lives on. It's not something that we can really stand firm in and root our identity in because it is, it is failing. It will, we just don't have it within us to love perfectly.

And the truth is the love that we do share with others is typically rooted in the needs that we want to be met, our own needs. So if you think about any relationship, there's usually a give and take. And if the giving stops, the relationship changes. And so it's not right or wrong, it just is how we're created.

We're designed to lean into where we're getting our needs met. And so if that changes, we're gonna do something different. It's not so with God's love. God's love is the kind of thing that we can grab hold of and have our security rooted in. It is an anchor for our souls, for our hearts, for our minds. God's love is unchanging. It is not based on our performance.

It is not measured by what we do. It's not earned, though we try, because it's in our nature to want to perform and do well. God's love is consistent and it's covenantal, meaning he promised. The God of the universe promised that he would love us with an unfailing love. You know, even Jesus himself,

needed to hear God's affirmation of God's love for him. And I noticed this when I was reading Matthew yesterday, Matthew 3 17. So this is in the Bible where Jesus is getting ready to start his ministry at age 30. And John the Baptist has been the one that has been baptizing people in the name of Jesus. And Jesus goes to John the Baptist and says, I want you to baptize me.

And John says, can't possibly do that. You're the Messiah. You are God in human form. And Jesus said, this is the way it needs to be. And so John baptizes Jesus. And when Jesus comes out of the water, God opens the heavens and uses his voice to speak. And God says, this is my son whom I love. With him, I am well pleased.

What struck me about that is Jesus himself in the human form needed God's affirmation that he was loved, that God was pleased with him, that God delights in him. And the thing that's so cool about this is Jesus hadn't really done anything when God says this, that he's pleased with him. He hadn't even started his ministry yet. And so,

It just goes to show how much we need to remember and know God's affirmation, you know, that God loves us. Like we actually need to know that every day because we will forget. And so it's so important to remind ourselves and our soul, God loves me. God loves you. I am so loved to say that to ourselves. I am loved because it will change everything.

There's another verse that is probably my favorite verse in the whole Bible. It has to be. It is so profound and it's buried deep into the middle of the Bible in a book called Zephaniah. Zephaniah was a prophet. It's in Zephaniah 3.17 and this is what it says. I want you to listen to this. Have you ever heard this? Because when I heard this it just

It made God come alive to me in a way that I hadn't seen before in such a romantic, beautiful way. This is what it says, 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. I'm going to repeat that last part.

He will rejoice over you with singing.

I always think about this, that God, when I'm lying in bed doing nothing, sleeping, God is singing over me with delight, with love. He's rejoicing over me with singing and He's rejoicing over you. And there's nothing that we can do to make Him do that. It's just His nature. He just loves us that much. So when we

think about love and our belovedness, we have to make sure that we're rooting it in God and not in people. Because the truth is we will always let people down. Other people are gonna let us down, we're gonna let them down. Like our love apart from God is really just selfish ambition.

It's trying to get our own needs met. Whereas if we are connected to God, if we are filled up and receiving the love that God has for us, that is when that pure unselfish love can flow out of us into others and they will feel it. They will experience it. And loving other people that way is a blessing for us too. It's that like, this is what life is about.

It truly is about love, but we cannot do it apart from Christ. We need the Holy Spirit working within us and flowing through and out of us to other people. Otherwise, we have very, very little to give. And so some ways to sort of practice this belovedness is to say to yourself, I am the beloved of God.

You know, the word also says, we're the apple of his eye. You know, it's so endearing. We're the apple of God's eye. You know, I am a daughter of the king. That's something that I say to myself when I need to remember who I am. My identity gets a little rocky, shaky, start to get insecure, and I need to remember, wait a minute.

God created me. I am a daughter of the king. I am a child of the Most High God. I encourage you to find what language works for you. Think about it. mean, walking into a meeting, stepping into a presentation, walking into a confrontation that you're going to have to have, a conflict, a crucial conversation, sometimes facing your husband, facing your children.

There are all kinds of situations that we face in our lives that we need to go into those situations with the love of God dripping on us, just pouring in and through us because we can't be who we're called to be without that strong foundation of knowing that we are loved.

It is not because of our performance. It's not because of the good deeds that you've done. It's not because of your sin. You know, God is a God of graciousness and forgiveness. He sees us through the filter of Christ and what Christ did on the cross so that we can be reconciled to God. It's such a profound thing. So I pray that you can take this with you.

that you will be able to stand in your belovedness, that you will really step into how deeply loved you are because I promise you it will change. It will change your world because it will change you.

I'll leave you with a blessing.

May you rest in the truth that you are God's beloved, chosen, seen, and held. May the Lord quiet your striving with His love and steady your heart with His presence. May you live anchored in hope, secure in who you are in Christ, and walk forward.

from love, not for love but from love. Amen. Belovedness is not something you reach for, it's the place you stand. So stand today in your belovedness and I'll see you next week when we move to the next identity in Christ.