To feel God's love, one must first have a basic understanding of how God operates, and how He communicates with us. But before even that, you must truly and actively
desire what you seek and
believe that you will receive it. If you only mildly want it and/or don't really believe that God is real and that he can extend his love to you, you will most likely never experience it.
Assuming you really want to feel God's love, and that you can at least believe that if there is a God, that he does love you, consider the following additional points gleaned from scripture:
Let's assume that:
- God is real
- God is omniscient and knows you
- God is omnipotent
- You are created in the image of God. You are like him, only less perfect
- If you are like God, and God has a spirit (the Holy Ghost), it follows that you too have a spirit. I liken our spirits to our consciousness, or self awareness.
- You have a body that can feel physical senses, and a spirit (consciousness) that dwells in your body. It's both your body and your spirit which allows you to feel emotions, such as love, hurt, anguish, anger, jealousy, etc.
- Imperfect beings are not allowed into the presence of God.
- Because imperfect beings are not allowed into the presence of God, He communicates to us spirit to spirit. The medium of that communication is the 3rd member of the godhead or holy trinity as some call it, the Holy Ghost. Incidentally, the Holy Ghost is mentioned over 300 times in the New Testament, probably double that or more if you refer to other names for the same entity, e.g. "holy spirit", "comforter", etc. Must be pretty important.
With these assumptions in hand (which I believe can all be verified in the bible), let's look at a few verses (KJV) that support my assumption (point #8) that God communicates to us through the medium of the Holy Ghost:
Luke 2:25-26
"...and the Holy Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost..."
John 14:26
"But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost [...] shall teach you all things..."
Acts 13:2
"As they [...] fasted, the Holy Ghost said..."
There are dozens more references just like these that support the assumption that God uses the Holy Ghost to communicate with his children. I don't need to post them all, you can search them up if you're interested. The next reference answers the question, "how can I feel God's love?" in perfect clarity:
Romans 5:5
"And hope maketh not ashamed; because
the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." (emphasis added)
From this we can conclude that God's love can be felt in our hearts (the center of our being, the wellspring of emotions) through the Holy Ghost, which is the method God uses to speak to our minds and our hearts.
So how do we convince God to give us this priceless manifestation that He loves us? Again, I believe it comes down to truly and actively
desiring what you seek and
believing that you will receive it. Once you are confident that you both desire and believe, the next step is simply to ask with this understanding of how He answers (the Holy Ghost), without wavering (doubting) and wait for Him to answer in His way and in His own time [See James 1:5-7
ask, but don't doubt, for a doubting man receives no answer; James 4:8
if we draw close to the Lord, he will draw close to us].