God’s Love
November 30, 2003
Dear Friends,
Do you think that God loves you? Do not confuse this question with the more global question of “Does God love us?” as in “for God so loved the world.” Does God love (fill in your name here)?
Many people are not very comfortable with the personalizing of God’s love. They are very comfortable with the fact that God loves us, but less so with the idea that He loves them individually. It seems almost vain or proud to think about the Creator loving us personally. We find ourselves asking the question: “Why would He love me of all people?”
All of this can sound like mushy nonsense, but quite to the contrary, this is a vital point with far-reaching implications. God loves me and you. Individually. Personally. Distinctly. Believe it or not, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, knows us, cares about us and loves us.
If we do not personalize that love, why don’t we? It is because we feel that we are not worthy? Well, we certainly are not worthy of God’s love, but He loves us anyway. Is it because we feel insignificant in the scope of the whole world? We are in certain respects. One in six billion would be considered insignificant in most circles. Yet, despite our insignificance, He loves us anyway which makes each of us of the utmost importance. How can something that God loves be unimportant?
The reason that each of us need to feel the personal love of God is that it is one of the main catalysts to a life of faith. If you don’t think God loves you, how can you really trust Him? Think of it this way, maybe He has created a bunch of commandments and doctrines just to mess us up. Maybe He told us to act a certain way just to take the joy out of life. But if we truly believe that God loves us individually, He wouldn’t do that to us. He would tell us things that were absolutely in our best interest like a wise and loving parent. He would lead us down the right paths. He wouldn’t give us trials and tribulations just to see how much pain and suffering we can endure. He would give us trials out of love.
Personalizing the love of God is a transforming experience. You no longer feel like you are at odds with Him. It is not you against God in a battle you can never win, but a team approach in which God is doing the heavy lifting. You don’t question the fairness of God as if He has stacked the deck against you. You realize that compelling truth to the rhetorical question: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31) You accept His divine guidance in the Scriptures instead of wondering if He has told us the truth or not.
Why God loves us is another question entirely. How God can love such a bunch of bumbling, sin prone people is absolutely amazing. The fact is that He does. We should rejoice in that fact. We should live like we believe it. We should return that love to Him by obeying Him and sharing this Good News at every opportunity with those who do not feel His love.
“Beloved friends, let us love one another; because love is from God; and everyone who loves has God as his Father and knows God. Those who do not love, do not know God; because God is love. Here is how God showed his love among us: God sent his only Son into the world, so that through him we might have life. Here is what love is: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the (atonement) for our sins. (1 John 4:7-10 – The Jewish New Testament)
Have a great week!
